Written by KJ Thomas
When one hears the word slavery, what is the first thing that comes to mind? African men, women, and children - young and old - standing on a wharf-side platform, cowering under the whips of the slave trader? Harriet Tubman leading a family across a river to freedom? Maybe the Israelites building the pyramids in Egypt? Those are all examples of slavery. But one important detail is missing. That is the old face of slavery. The new face of slavery is quite different, and even more depraved.
The year 2007 was not the 200 year anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. It was the anniversary of the date slavery was dealt a blow and recovered well. Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." What this means is slavery is illegal everywhere in the world, yet, it exists in nearly every country in the world. Slave-holders act illegally and governments only have a tiny fraction of law enforcement recourses directed towards slavery and trafficking.
There are many more people enslaved today than there were in the entire transatlantic slave trade. There is an estimated 27 million slaves worldwide. Of those 27 million, 600,000 to 800,000 people are trafficked across international borders into slavery yearly. The reason slavery is such a booming industry today can be explained with four factors : rapid social and economic change, population explosion, rapid urbanization of the world, and governmental corruption. The changing face of slavery is also a problem. Old slavery is quite different than the new slavery today. While legal ownership was required in the 1800s, legal ownership is now avoided at all costs. The slaves now are cheap to buy and make a high profit, in contrast to old slavery, in which slaves were costly to buy and made a very low profit. Slaves today are disposable and short-term, while the slaves used to be maintained and kept for a long-term relationship. A big factor in the old slavery was ethnic differences, but now, ethnicity is not important. Slave-holders will enslave anyone.
There are four main types of slavery; chattel slavery, debt bondage, sex slavery, and forced labor. These take the form in anything from domestic servitude in Mauritania, families enslaved in brick kilns in India, charcoal making factories in Brazil, and brothels in New York City. As you can see, slavery exists in nearly every country in the world today. The majority of the world's slaves are in South Asia - in countries such as Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and India. Africa and South America's slave rate is high in some areas, and human trafficking is bring thousands of slaves to countries in Europe, North America, and South East Asia. Currently, there is an estimated 200,000 people enslaved in the United States, with 17,500 new victims trafficked across the United States border each year.
I have mentioned a few times the word 'trafficking.' One might ask - what is the difference between human trafficking and slavery? Slavery is when one person completely controls another person, exploits them economically, pays them nothing, and they cannot walk away. Human trafficking is the modern day slave trade, the process of enslaving a person. It happens when one person is tricked or kidnapped or coerced, taken across borders (whether it be international, national, state, or even cultural), then taken into slavery. If moving a person across borders does not result in slavery, it is not human trafficking, but more than likely smuggling.
The form of modern day slavery I would like to focus on is sexual slavery of children, specifically in Asia. There are 10 million children enslaved as sex slaves worldwide. Every year, 1 million children are lured into prostitution all over the world. The children are sold by family members, tricked by distant relatives, offered a well paying "job" in the city, offered an education, and kidnapped into this work. Upon their arrival at the brothel, the trafficker hands the girl off to the brothel owner, who then sets his or her mind on breaking the girl's will. It is not easy to crush a human mind, but with enough brutality, time, and indifference to suffering, it can be done. And it is done. A week or so after the girl arrives, she is told she has to repay her debt to the brothel owner. This "debt" is the expenses for food, rent, clothing, what it cost the trafficker to bring her to them, and more. It increases daily. If rent for a room at a brothel is 30,000 baht (Thailand currency) a month, a girl must have 300 customers at 300 baht a month.
The governments in South Asia turn a blind eye, cooperate with slave-holders, and even enslave people themselves. In the United States and Europe, the police fight organized crime. In countries like Thailand, the Philippines, and India, the police are the organized crime. Most of the officers have visited the brothels - and some of them are regular customers who are bribed by the pimps. As well as the police force, regular men from these countries visit the brothels. Over 80% of men in Thailand have been to a brothel with child sex slaves enslaved there. But those are not the only customers. Many are wealthy tourists from the Western world. It is an industry that thrives on exploiting the innocent. The girls are chained to beds, abused daily, threatened and tortured, punished for no wrong doings, beaten and bruised, and made a toy for the depraved. No longer are the slave auctions the wharf-side platforms. They are now young girls parading in heels too big and makeup too heavy.
What can be done about this problem? There is no one size fits all answer, it is far too big for one person to take on by themselves. Governments are more likely to suffer penalty for burning a Hannah Montana CD than for exploiting children. The presence of a few hundred Ukrainian girls in Japanese brothels does not affect the balance of profits, so the government is not interested in doing anything about it. Christians must lead the way. Christians are the people believe in the transformation of the human heart. On one side of this global problem, slave holders are making a ton of money off of the exploitation of other human beings. On the other side of this problem, activists spend more time battling ignorance than the slave holders themselves. Our battle will be on it's way to being over once people stop asking "there is still slavery today?"
If one person in the world is enslaved, not one of us can say we are truly free.
