I asked a stranger at the bus stop the other day if he is aware that slavery still exists today and he looked at me like I was crazy. The fact of the matter is that most people today would react the same way if asked the same question because they do not know that slavery is alive today and a thriving business and not just in the underdeveloped countries but here in the United States of America as well. The fact is there are 27 million slaves in the world today and at least 14,500 slaves are trafficked in the U.S. alone each year. This makes modern day slavery worst than the transatlantic slave trade of the 16th century. Today, the majority of slaves can be found in India and in African countries working in fields, brothels, homes, mines, and restaurants, where they are forced to work without pay and are threatened with violence and unable to get away. In Asia, slaves can also be found in sweatshops where they face the same labor conditions found in India and Africa. Slavery is still not legal anywhere but they happen everywhere and has different labels or terms like debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec (domestic enslavement of children), forced labor, forced servitude, and human trafficking which is the most common modern day term for slavery. No matter what people call it today, slavery still does the same thing it did centuries ago, it takes away two God given rights from its victims, the right to freedom and the right to live respectably. Therefore, slavery should not be tolerated and must be abolished once and for all.

Slavery today manifests itself in four different forms, sex slavery, labor slavery, child slavery, and child soldiering. Sex slavery takes place when a person is used for commercial sex act and it’s induced by force or fraud and in the account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person. This form of slavery is considered the largest specific subcategory of transnational modern-day slavery. Labor slavery is subjection to involuntary servitude , debt bondage or slavery for the purpose of using a person for labor. Victims of this type of slavery are often kept in a condition of servitude by abuse, threats and/or lockdown. In most cases, female victims are often sexually abused. Another form is child slavery. This form involves the sale and trafficking of children for bonded and forced labor, commercial sexual exploitation and/or forced conscription into armed conflict. This type of slavery is perpetuated by poverty, debt bondage, mass displacement, pandemics such as HIV/AIDS, war, and the traditional roles of girls. Lastly, child soldiering involves the unlawful recruitment of children through coercion to be exploited as combatants, sex slaves, or labor servants in conflict areas. Such practices maybe perpetrated by government forces, paramilitary organizations, and rebel groups.

As mentioned earlier in the introduction, modern slavery can be found anywhere in the world. According to Free The Slaves, a non-profit organization based in Washington, D.C., there are between 500,000 to 5 million slaves in South America and Africa and more than 5 million in Asia alone. North America and Europe has less than 5 million slaves and are mainly the receiver of slave labour and products. South America, Africa, and Asia uses slave labor internally and are responsible for exporting slavery to developed countries. In the U.S., slaves come from 60 countries and are found in 90 cities. Also, an estimated 50% of slavery in the U.S. is in the commercial sex industry and the other 50% is in agriculture, domestic service, manufacturing, and other industries. In Europe, traffickers often target young women in Russia and Eastern Europe for forced prostitution in Western Europe, Israel, the Gulf States and Japan. Others caught in slavery are forced to work in agriculture, food processing and the service sector and are often being lied to by recruiting agents. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked into slavery in Europe. In Latin America and Caribbean about 1,320,000 people are vulnerable to slavery at home and being trafficked abroad. The domestic enslavement of children (restavec) has been illegal in Haiti for longer than any other country, yet the practice continues affecting as many as 1 in 10 children. Hundreds of thousands of these children are held in Brazil and the fruits of their labor are exported around the world. Due to the efforts of the Brazilian government, 6,000 to 7,000 slaves are freed each year. There are 920,000 people enslaved in Africa and Middle East today. In Iraq alone, there are 40 plus instances of trafficking by contractors. Africa suffers from a high level of internal slavery. Brokers buy and traffic children within and between West African countries. Slaves work in cocoa, coffee, cotton, fishery, mines, as domestic servants and as prostitutes. They may also be trafficked on to Europe, the Middle East and Japan, where they are forced to fight by paramilitary forces ( like the child soldiers in Uganda) or suffer from state-sanctioned slavery. Several Gulf States are destination point for slaves trafficked from Asia and Africa. In Asia, there are currently 24 million people that are enslaved. In Japan alone, an estimated 40,000 women are being trafficked each year. The largest number of slaves in the world live in Pakistan, India and Nepal, where as many as 18 million workers are held as slaves, working for generations to repay small loans. The Chinese and Burmese governments are complicit in slavery. In Indonesia, fisheries owners buy or abduct children and sell the product in the West. Malaysia and the Philippines suffer internal enslavement in domestic service and trafficking into sexual exploitation in Gulf States and Japan, which is considered as the top user of slave labor among rich countries. Japan is also a destination point for 40 – 50,000 women trafficked annually into the sex industry.

In conclusion, most people today are unaware of slavery’s existence and if they are aware they think that it doesn’t affect them in any way so they become apathetic. People must not subscribe to this point of view because slavery affects us in many ways and it should be abolished. Kevin Bales, a leading figure in modern slavery and founder of Free The Slaves, when asked to give an example of how modern slavery can affect today’s lives, he pointed out two countries were slavery is thriving. First he pointed out Brazil where American companies are invested in Brazilian steel where charcoal made by slaves are used. Also, American companies are invested in beef and timber from Brazil where slaves are used to log timber and to prepare the land for the cattle and care for them. So the next time you are using a product where steel is used, stop and think how much slavery is used so you, the consumer, can enjoy that product. Next is the Ivory Coast which is the world’s largest exporter of cocoa. Kevin Bales visited the Ivory Coast and discovered horrific enslavement of young men, mostly economic migrant from nearby Mali who were in search of work. These young men are then forced into slavery on farms growing cocoa. Americans love their chocolates and their coffee which is made of cocoa. Next time you are drinking a nice warm cup of coffee or chocolate, or eating your favorite chocolate bar, stop for a minute and think of how much slavery is used so you, the consumer, can enjoy that cup of coffee or that bar of chocolate. Can we stop slavery? Yes we can by promoting awareness and getting involved in activities that calls for its demise. Slavery must end now.

Filed under: Just crossed my mind, October 2008 | You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.