This is the short edition of Morales, first broadcast on the BBC World Service.

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Hello and welcome to Morales on the BBC World Service.

I'm Charlotte McDonald.

Beautiful stars, sunk to as dresses, lots of red carpet.

Those are the glitzy hallmarks of the film award season that's now drawing to an end.

But amidst the glamour, one director has taken the opportunity to draw attention to the darker side of humanity.

Right now, there are 21 million people in slavery as we sit here, 21 million people.

That is the director of the film, 12 years of slave Steve McQueen, in his acceptance speech at the British Academy Film Awards.

He repeated the same statistic while accepting the Oscar for Best Picture.

Well boy, how you feel now?

I'm being a Solomon Law, I'm a free man.

This film is about historic slavery set in the USA in the 19th century.

But are there really 21 million slaves today?

There's not a single country on the planet where it's legal anymore.

A number of listeners emails in to ask if we can explore. Here's one from Michael Bern.

What is the definition of slavery in this context?

I don't understand how these numbers can be correct in this modern day context.

Steve McQueen's figure of 21 million comes from a report by the UN's International Labour Organization, or ILO.

Kevin Bales, Professor of Contemporary Slavery at the University of Hull, isn't sure how they reach this number.

The ILO, while they have very good methodologists, we're not able to see what their data happened to be

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