'It is an international disgrace that over 20 million people are working as slaves in the world today, ' Mike Dottridge, Director of Anti-Slavery International said.

Poverty and the growing demand for cheap, expendable labour is expanding slavery to every continent requiring the fight against this human rights abuse to take new forms.

Women from eastern Europe are trafficked to the west as prostitutes; men in India are forced into bonded labour giving their labour in return for a debt for which they have no record; and children are sold for their labour in West Africa. Most people do not believe that slavery still exits in the 21st century.

One of our biggest challenges is convincing the public that slavery exists on a massive scale and that we all have a role to play in eradicating it. Anti-Slavery's website, www.antislavery.org, provides information on all forms of slavery today.

Anti-Slavery is the world's oldest international human rights organisation and is the only organisation in the UK that works exclusively for the elimination of all forms of slavery around the world.