The COVID-19 pandemic will magnify systemic inequality that results in forced labor and modern slavery, the World Economic Forum (WEF) warned. More than 40 million people are estimated to be trapped in conditions of modern slavery, including 24.9 million in forced labor and 15.4 million in forced marriage, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO), a United Nations agency. One in four of them are children. Women and girls, who account for 99 percent of victims in the commercial sex industry and 58 percent in other sectors, are also “disproportionately affected” by forced labor.

With the Coronavirus crisis worsening living situations for months to come, those same people are now at even greater risk, the WEF said. Not only do they lack access to adequate healthcare, but their already restricted movements are further hamstrung by border closures and travel disruptions. Worse, they’re susceptible to stigmatization and discrimination by nativist rhetoric and politics.

Even migrant workers who wish to return home are unlikely to be able to do so safely for a long time. While countries such as Australia have proposed extensions for seasonal worker visas, such overtures are few and far between. Demand for labor—forced or otherwise—is also expected to ebb as the infection tightens its grip on markets, placing those already at high risk of exploitation even deeper in harm’s way

At the same time, risk of enslavement will surge, the WEF said. As the economic fallout from the pandemic continues to batter livelihoods, there will be an increased supply of workers vulnerable to exploitation due to poverty. The ILO estimates that COVID-19 could gut 25 million jobs and send global economies into a freefall if governments do not take adequate action.