The exploitation of workers is a huge business worldwide.

People forced to work without pay collectively lose more than $20 billion a year in earnings, according to a report from the United Nations International Labour Organization released Tuesday.

Global profits from human trafficking and forced labor have reached $36 billion, according to the United Nations, and that sum is climbing.

“Forced labor is the antithesis of decent work,” ILO Director-General Juan Somavia said in a statement as the report became public. “It causes untold human suffering and steals from its victims.”

“It is the vulnerable who suffer the most” in times of economic crisis like the present, the report says. (Read on …)