ABSTRACT
Although the US State Department has estimated that (0.18 per cent) or one person per thousand in the world population are trafficking victims, this figure is subject to debate because global agencies and interest groups involved in anti-trafficking programmes worldwide are notorious for manipulating the key arithmetic. They have, according to many reports, ‘vested interests in inflating the magnitude of the problem’, to both justify their existence and bankroll their efforts. 1 Others are simply wrong because of methodological issues irrespective of how widely they are quoted. According to critics, this is the case with one of the latest global studies, the Global Slavery Index, published by the Australian Walk Free Foundation. Its ‘extrapolations’ are very much of the flavour-of-the-month types and are repeatedly cited by South African researchers and anti-trafficking activists; but the methodology is highly questionable. 2
