Modern Day Slavery
Jani Helle
24 May 2001
International Relations
Mr. Calabrese
Modern Day Slavery
Most people believe that slavery no longer exists, but it is still very much alive. According to human-rights organizations, there are at least 27 million people in bondage today. If this figure is correct, then there are more slaves in the world today than ever before.
The face of slavery has changed from the past centuries. There are a lot of white slaves in the world nowadays. Our images of slavery are those of whips, shackles, and auctions. The problem is that modern-day slavery, cruel hierarchies, cannot be immortalized into a photograph. The field of slavery, or trafficking as it is more commonly known as today, has divided into many smaller categories. The largest and the best known of these categories of slavery is international prostitution. There are also such forms of slavery as mail-order brides, servile marriage, debt bondage, child labor and forced labor. Although the vast majority of victims are no longer sold at public auctions, today’s slaves are often no better off than their predecessors a century or two ago. In many cases the slaves of today lead more brutal and hazardous lives. The trafficking of women is now considered the third largest source of profits for organized crime, behind only drugs and guns. The industry generates billions of dollars annually. The term, trafficking of women, is somewhat incorrect because many of the females are still young girls, ages 10-15, or even some as young as 8 years of age. Even young boys are victims of the trafficking. The U.S. Government’s definition of trafficking is:
“All acts involved in the transport , harboring, or sale of persons within national or across international borders through coercion, force, kidnapping, deception or fraud, for purposes of placing persons in situations of forced labor or services, such as prostitution, domestic servitude, debt bondage or other slavery-like practices.”
The trafficking of people for prostitution and forced labor is one of the fastest growing areas of international criminal activity in the world. Because the industry is underground, hard numbers are difficult to establish. An estimated 1 to 2 million people are trafficked each year worldwide. Trafficking affects virtually every country in the world. The largest number of victims come from Asia, with over 225,000 victims each year from Southeast Asia and over 150,000 from South Asia. The former Soviet Union is now believed to be the largest new source of trafficking for prostitution and the sex industry, with more than 100,000 trafficked each year from the region. Women who have been forced into prostitution have a hard time adjusting into society after they are released. For many, prostitution has been the only livelihood for years and they have nothing else to resort to. Trafficking women are often subjected to cruel mental and physical abuse in order to keep the in servitude. These punishments include beating, rape, starvation, forced drug use, confinement, and seclusion.
Trafficking has seen a rise in numbers over the last century or two. There have been many contributing factors. One such is the continuing subordination of women in many societies, societies which indirectly drive the daughters of impoverished families into prostitution or forced labor. Any war has flow of refugees out of the country. Many of these lose everything they had and have nothing to rely on for money. May of these refugees can only actually rely on prostitution for money. The collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic hardships that ensued forced poorer families out of Russia in search of money. Many women have resorted to prostitution because of the lack of opportunities in other fields. There is a high demand of trafficked women and children for sex tourism, sex workers, cheap sweatshop labor, and domestic workers. Most countries in the world don’t pose adequate laws in dealing with traffickers, allowing them to practically roam freely. In many Asian countries where the sex industry and the trafficking of women and children are booming, barely anything is done to stop them. The local police are more than often corrupt and frequent bordello patrons themselves.
Children play a significant role in modern-day slavery. They can be found weaving carpets in harsh conditions in India and in brothels in Thailand, Cambodia and the Philippines, to name a few. Some children are outright kidnapped from the streets and taken to another country whilst others are tricked into slavery with false promises of good jobs and education abroad. Some are also simply sold by their parents who have fallen on hard times, mainly due to a drinking or drug problem nowadays. Many children, especially in the poorer countries in Asia, are often born into debt bondage. Their family or an earlier generation has taken a loan to help them through tough times. Hardly ever is this debt paid back and only increases over time. The poor families who took the debt have to pledged themselves and their offspring to labor. Debt bondage continues to enslave millions of Asians today.
The poorer regions of Asia have even, to an extent, accepted sexual enslavement as a way of life, and now families in these regions are for the first time welcoming a new-born baby girl as a guaranteed wage earner, and not as an economic burden.
Another aspect of the enslavement of women are mail-order brides. The sale of women is not a new phenomenon. Women have been sold and bought for thousands of years and it is even considered to be the “world’s oldest profession.” The modern method is to buy a wife by mail. The buyers are most often older white men who are looking for women as servants and sex partners. These women are very often from Asia; there are at least 50,000 Filipina mail-order brides in the U.S. alone.
Debt bondage, forced labor, and child prostitution aside, unbelievable as it sounds, pure chattel slavery still exists in the world. In Mauritania and Sudan, a person can still become the property of another for life, bought or sold, traded or inherited, and even branded and bred. Human rights organizations have even reported of slave markets in Sudan. Getting rid of slavery and trafficking is a intense issue. There are no occupations ready to occupy the millions of prostituted women and provide an equal amount of money for them. For millions and millions of people in the world slavery is a way of life and they can’t do anything to affect the outcome of their future. Who said slavery was abolished in the 1800’s?
