Modern Slavery
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TAKE ACTION: Combatting and Abolishing Modern Slavery
One of the greatest allies of those who use slave labor, buy or sell people, or exploit them for any purpose, is the silence, deceit, and misconceptions that surround the modern slave trade. Shattering silence, revealing the truthfulness and urgency of modern injustice, and accurately understanding the problem and how to effectively implement solutions is where we begin. The reality is that 27 million people live in slavery in the world today, whether they are being exploited sexually, forced to work in factories or kilns, or any other kind of demeaning work, and not just in other parts of the world. Slavery, while perhaps more severe in conflict zones, areas where genocide is occuring, or failed states, occurs in the West as well. It is an international crime, finding root in any place that demand exists for slave labor.
Human Trafficking
Slavery is able to proliferate and become so widespread partly due to the ability of traffickers to move slaves and avoid police or NGO detection. Those held captive are often moved across borders, state lines, between cities, etc, and often with impunity. Corrupt governments and officials who are willing to look the other way, or even directly participate, ofen facilitate the efforts of traffickers. This includes the United States; the CIA estimates that 80,000 women and children are trafficked across national borders annually.
With the emergence of globalization, an increasingly inter-connected world, we find ourselves able to exchange information, currency, food and medicine with greater speed and reliability. Conversely, however, traffickers have been able to take advantage of the decline of trade barriers as well. A strip club owner could request “workers” for his club and they arrive in the United States, sometimes as far as Asia, as soon as forty eight hours later. An Eastern European women may find herself in the United States or Mexico, or a Korean girl in Australia.
Not only is trafficking and forced labor or sexual exploitation a problem for those that are enslaved, but also for you and I as well. Slavery is a multi-billion dollar industry, and in 2010 the estimated combined revenue of traffickers and slave owners worldwide was more than the top 5 corporations in the world. As traffickers become more affluent and more comfortable in their crime, they, as any investor would do, divest their portfolios into politics and government, further destabilizing many governments in the world that are already crippled.
Fortunately, the world is beginning to notice this problem, and the United Nations began to take serious steps to combat modern slavery and human trafficking. Under the “Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and children”, or the Trafficking Protocol, human trafficking is defined as
The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Human trafficking and modern day slavery is the second fastest growing crime in the world, and yet many are unaware of it. Part of a solution is being aware of human trafficking and slavery, knowing what to look for or noticing signs of a potential instance of it. Practical solutions can be implemented that can begin to break away the foundation that traffickers stand on, ranging from making the community more aware, putting up flyers, involving academics, prevention, training medical or law enforcement personnel, and so on. Join us as we take steps forward in combatting modern slavery and bringing a voice to those who have none.
If you or someone you know is being trafficked or you are concerned that you may have found a possible reference, or want to provide a tip, do not hesitate to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center (NHTRC) at 1.888.3737.888. Interpreters are available twenty four hours a day.