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Some 21 million people worldwide still in conditions of contemporary slavery: UN

Xinhua, November 29, 2016 Adjust font size:

An estimated 21 million people worldwide are trapped in conditions of contemporary slavery, including some five million children, the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights said Monday.

"Slavery is not something that belongs to the past but a cruel reality of our age," the office said in a media statement announcing an upcoming event which will showcase the extent of modern-day slavery.

The event, entitled "Revealing the Child Faces of Modern Slavery", will be organized by the UN Human Rights Office to mark International Day for the Abolition of Slavery on December 2.

The event is also to mark the 25th anniversary of the UN Voluntary Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, which since it was established in 1991 has supported more than 400 organizations worldwide and, through them, tens of thousands of men, women and child victims of various forms of today's slavery.

In 2016, the Fund issued grants to projects in 34 countries, helping more than 29,000 victims, a third of whom were children, the UN rights office said. Enditem