Ending slavery

What? Wasn't slavery outlawed more than a century ago in most places? Could it be true then that some 27 million people are enslaved today, more than at any time in history? That's what Susan Llewelyn Leach reports in this disturbing article from The Christian Science Monitor: "Slavery is not dead, just less recognizable."

Modern-day slavery has little of the old [American] South. Of those 27 million, the majority are bonded laborers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal - workers who have given their bodies as collateral for debts that never diminish no matter how many years, or sometimes generations, the enslaved labor on. . . .

In his book Disposable People, [Kevin] Bales says ownership is no longer an attractive proposition for most slaveholders because the price of slaves is so low. In 1850, a slave would cost about $40,000 [US] in today's dollars. Now, you can buy a slave for $30 in the Ivory Coast. The glut "has converted them from being the equivalent of buying a car to buying a plastic pen that you use and throw away," he says. That makes maintenance of the "investment" a low priority, and little care is taken for slaves' well-being.

The most common type of slavery is debt bondage which traps 15 million to 20 million in loan agreements they can never pay off. Others are lured by false promises into forced labor situations, where they are coerced to stay under threat of violence. Slavery also includes the worst forms of child labor and sexual exploitation of women and girls.

Fortunately people are working to combat the practice, including Bale's Free the Slaves and Tommy Calvert's American Anti-Slavery Group. That they deserve our support hardly need be said.