The slave trade was huge – British ships transported 2.6 million enslaved people. The use of African slave labour was not new. Sadly, modern-day slavery still exists today. The Spanish and Portuguese had been using African slaves since the 16th century. It is estimated that there are millions of people (children, women and men) that are trapped in different forms of slavery all over the world. Prevalence within Africa. Large scale slave trading in Africa ceased towards the end of the 19th century, but its legacy of suffering continues today. It has been estimated overall, about 12 million Africans were enslaved and taken to the Americas. The region has the highest rate of prevalence, with 7.6 people living in modern slavery for every 1,000 people in the region. CNN's Vladimir Duthiers examines the conditions that permit so many people to be enslaved in West Africa today. An estimated 650,000 have crossed the Sahara desert in the last 5 years seeking a better life. Every day across Africa, black men, women, and children are captured, bought, and sold into slavery with the Western world paying scant attention. Some estimate that without slavery the population of Africa would have been double the 25m it had reached by 1850. Slavery's long effects on Africa By Will Ross BBC News, Ghana Between the 15th and 19th Centuries, it is estimated that up to 12m Africans were forced onto European slave ships and taken across the Atlantic. "During slavery many of the able-bodied people, between 18 and 40, were taken out so society's ability to reproduce itself economically, socially and culturally was impaired," says Zagba Oyortey a Ghanaian cultural historian. On any given day in 2016, an estimated 9.2 million men, women, and children were living in modern slavery in Africa. Greene’s research focuses on the history of slavery in West Africa, especially Ghana, where warring political communities in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries enslaved their enemies, and the impact can still be felt today. The lovers, who were in their early thirties, hailed from Okija in south-eastern Anambra state, where But thousands have been sold into slavery.