Mauritania's parliament has passed a law making slavery a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison after years of lobbying by rights groups in the Saharan Islamic state.

Here are details of persistent slavery in the 21st century:


* SOME NUMBERS:

-- Slavery is officially banned internationally by all countries, yet there are more slaves than ever before. Today there are an estimated 27 million slaves worldwide: people paid no money, locked away and controlled by violence.

-- An estimated 218 million children are used for labour, United Nations Childrens Fund UNICEF says.

-- There are around 300,000 child soldiers involved in over 30 areas of conflict worldwide, some younger than 10 years old.


* TYPES OF SLAVERY:

-- BONDED LABOUR - People become bonded labourers by taking or being tricked into taking a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child. Many may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down for generations.

-- FORCED LABOUR - People are illegally recruited by individuals, governments or political parties and forced to work, usually under threat of violence or other penalties.

-- TRAFFICKING - The transport and/or trade of people from one area to another for the purpose of forcing them into conditions of slavery. Human trafficking ranks as the second largest criminal industry globally, second to drug smuggling, and equal with illegal weapons transactions.


* SLAVERY NOW:

-- The vast majority of the world's slaves are in South Asia, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

-- Millions of children in India are given up by their families into virtual slavery as domestic workers.

-- Despite a ban on employing children under 14, India's labour ministry recently said there are 12.6 million children aged between 5 and 14 working, the largest number of child labourers in the world.


* EUROPE:

-- British government research shows that during 2003 there were 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution in Britain.

-- Romania and Bulgaria are among 11 countries listed by the United Nations as top sources of human trafficking, based on reported numbers of victims.


* AFRICA:

-- An estimated 200,000-800,000 people are trafficked each year in the sub-region.

-- In Mauritania slavery was nominally abolished at independence in 1960 and legally banned again in 1981. Yet rights groups say it persists in the interior of the nation of 3 million inhabitants, many of them nomads.

-- Anti-Slavery International has estimated at least 43,000 people live as slaves across Niger.

Sources: Reuters/Anti-Slavery International/

UNICEF/http;//freetheslaves.net