No country is “immune” from the scourge of modern slavery and the path that many of its victims take “can often by very similar”.

That’s the warning from Siddharth Kara, who was at UN Headquarters in New York recently, to launch his latest book on the issue, entitled “Modern Slavery: A Global Perspective”.

The senior fellow at Harvard University describes it as the “dark underbelly” of economic globalization, with unscrupulous private sector companies exploiting free labour to maximize profit.

He estimates that a total of 31.2 million people around the world are enslaved.

This includes debt bondage, human trafficking and other forced labour.

Mr Kara spoke to Agnese Pastorino, about his work as a researcher, author, activist and producer.

Duration: 5’21”