Around 2.5 MLN people around the globe are victims of slavery and sexual abuse, according to the United Nations. The UN blames the shocking figures on globalisation, saying the development of transportation has boosted human trafficking together with trad

The international body is now starting an offensive against the problem with its first global forum on human trafficking.

Participants from over a hundred countries are gathering in the Austrian capital to discuss how to deal with the problem.

They'll examine ways of blocking Internet payments for trafficking, technology to track the most common routes and how to provide support to victims.

The UN aims to achieve universal government approval for its anti-trafficking guidelines.

Despite the fact slavery has been officially banned in all countries, it still plagues the world in the twenty first century.

“It's quite hard to put forward any figures as there are no official statistics on the subject collected in Russia. International non-governmental organisations say most victims of human trafficking come from Eastern Europe and Asia. As for Russia, most of the human traffic victims from there go to the Emirates and other Oriental countries, Russian girls are popular as sex slaves there,” Tatyana Kholshchevnikova from Working Group on Human Trafficking said.

The headline says: “I am a sex slave”

 
There are several types of reasons why forced labour and sexual exploitation still exist.

Those include economic factors like unemployment and poverty, and social factors including domestic violence and lack of attention to children.

Political measures are being taken to try to limit the growth of the trade in people.

“Recently we have prepared a draft bill on preventing human trafficking. The State Duma is now set to focus on it and we hope some time soon it will be passed and become a law,” Tatyana Kholshchevnikova added.

As it is difficult to measure the scale of the crime, it is also difficult to measure the effectiveness of anti-people smuggling efforts.

For now, it seems, it's still a long way to go before slavery exists only in history books.