[olavk]

Don't you mean that there are higher absolute numbers of slaves today? I have a hard time believing that there is a larger percentage of slaves today than in the roman empire. That would mean there is something like a billion slaves today.

Edit: Wikipedia says there are estimated 12-27 millions slaves today, which is a lot of people, but certainly not as high a percentage of the worlds population.

[bmj]

I agree with the grandparent, but I'm skeptical of the numbers quoted, too. Slavery, along with child and sex trafficking, is certainly still a huge problem, but because it happens in the shadows, most people don't know about it.

[yitchelle]

And, because it occurs in the shadows, the true numbers will never been known.