Country risk profile · Global Slavery Index 2023
Forced labour risk in India
This profile describes structural risk conditions for companies sourcing from India. It says nothing about any individual supplier, and a high structural risk score is not an allegation that forced labour has occurred anywhere in your chain.
Estimated prevalence
8
people per 1,000 population estimated to be living in modern slavery (2021 reference year)
Prevalence rank
33 / 160
where 1 is the highest estimated prevalence in the index
Government response
46%
Moderate government response
ILO Protocol P029
Not ratified
Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, where recorded in our dataset
What the state response means for a buyer
Walk Free assesses the state response as moderate. Enforcement capacity is uneven, so buyer-side due diligence carries more of the weight.
In the Libera score, this tier adds 5 points of response gap on top of the prevalence component. The full weighting is published on the methodology page.
Import measures and sanctions recorded
No forced-labour import measure is recorded against India in our dataset. That is not a clearance: measures target entities and goods as well as countries, and Libera screens every supplier name against live sanctions and import-ban lists at the time of the check.
Screening covers OFAC sanctions data and the DHS UFLPA Entity List, fetched when a supplier is screened. How UFLPA screening works.
Listed sectors
Sectors listed for India on the US DOL forced labour goods list.
Agriculture
intensity 90ILO: agriculture is a top forced-labour sector; most TVPRA-listed goods are agricultural
Textile & garments
intensity 86DOL TVPRA: garments, cotton and footwear listed for many sourcing countries
Construction
intensity 84ILO: construction shows high forced-labour incidence via recruitment fees and migrant labour
Mining & minerals
intensity 82DOL TVPRA: extensive listings for ores, stones, gold and coal
Manufacturing & electronics
intensity 66ILO: manufacturing is a major share of private-economy forced labour; UFLPA exposure in electronics
A listing means goods in that sector have been reported as produced with forced or child labour somewhere in the country. It does not describe any particular supplier, site or shipment.
Risk is not proof
Country data describes structural conditions across an economy. It cannot tell you what is happening at one site this month, and it is never a finding about a supplier. In Libera, country risk sets the baseline; what changes a supplier's status is what is actually observed — live list matches, and confidential signals from the people doing the work.
Prevalence and government response figures are from the Global Slavery Index 2023, a static edition with a 2021 reference year. They are not updated in real time.
Other country profiles
Sources