Slavery in the 21st Century

"There's another humanitarian crisis spreading, yet hidden from view. Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold or forced across the world's borders...." (President Bush U.N. speech, 2003/09/23)

Do you mean to say, Joe, that slavery is still practiced? In this day and age? Yes - that's exactly what I mean to say. While slavery sits at one of its lowest ebbs in human history in the wake of the West's 19th-century imperial anti-slavery campaigns, it never really went away.

National Geographic just finished a superb bit of investigative reporting for the current issue. "There are more slaves today," it says, "than were seized from Africa in four centuries of the trans-Atlantic slave trade."

Normally, I'm skeptical of these sorts of claims. The criteria used are critical - "sexual assault" surveys that include everything from rape to lewd comments are the most often-seen abuses, and attention to the details is the only way to ensure that dishonest hype is not allowed to sully investigations of real problems. I believe National Geographic's criteria to be sound, however, and to reflect activities that reasonable people would describe without reservation as slavery. Many of these varieties of slavery have always been more common than the slave ships we usually associate with the phenomenon - but that doesn't make them less pernicious, or less destructive. Or less deserving of the moral odium of free peoples.

Some things are simply wrong. Period. Slavery is one of them.

This truth has become generally recognized in the West after the Enlightenment changed the traditional view, shared by most civilizations throughout history, that slavery was part of the natural social order. With the general collapse of communism worldwide, the last major bastion of ideological justification for slavery largely collapsed with it. There are a few notable holdouts, of course, but theirs is a fading destiny. The idols they worshipped at have failed, and decay is no longer a question of if but a matter of when.

Instead, the variant of slavery that predominates today is not slavery as policy, but a 21st century witches' brew of greed, corruption and abuse that survives by flying "under the radar" most of the time and not calling too much attention to itself. The characteristics and economics of slavery have changed - but its fundamental nature remains.

Geitner Simmons recently ran a blog post about slavery in Brazil. Randy Paul of Beautiful Horizons, who does our Latin America Regional Briefings, read it and commented that he had seen other accounts of this phenomenon, then added in an email:

"These sorts of things happen a lot in the N and NE of Brazil. There are people there known as "coroneis" (colonels), although not literally so, who have a great deal of influence over the lives of the citizens simply because of their financial power and ability to buy the local politicians and police. I love Brazil, but things like this depress the hell out of me. They border on the feudal."

Debt slavery is very common in many countries, not just Brazil. It's common practice in Ivory Coast, for instance, where most of the world's cocoa is grown. It's not unheard of in India. Yet even feudal conditions are a step up compared to some forms of slavery - like the kind found in the world sex trade, for instance.

Let me be clear. I have no moral beef with the sex trade per se. If someone genuinely wants to be a stripper, or even a prostitute, I have no great issue with that. To be forced into the sex trade, however - or worse, sold into it by one's parents as is common in several Third World countries - is a nightmare almost beyond imagining. Some are as young as 6 years old.

National Geographic's September 2003 feature article is excellent. The web excerpt deals with one girl's story, a pretty tame one as sex slavery stories go. Around the world, stories like this - and far worse - are common. Something that President Bush recognized the other day in his U.N. speech, perhaps in part because of the activism shown by evangelical churches on these issues in Africa and elsewhere.

"...Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year -- much of which is used to finance organized crime.

There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life -- an underground of brutality and lonely fear. Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others. And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery."

Yes - and some of the governments are our own.

Needless to say, I don't expect real help on the issue of slavery from the U.N. Indeed, one could argue that its record in contributing to this problem currently outstrips its efforts to date aimed at solving it. So, what can we do?

• Some of it is already being done, via new laws and more attention to enforcement of old ones. Still, let's not delude ourselves: even within North America and Europe, efforts to combat modern slavery at the local level will be a long, drawn-out fight. It will require concerted public pressure to ensure that laws are not only passed, but enforced despite local corruption and the human tendency to look the other way.

• Some of that local pressure, as well as international pressure, will come from Christian (esp. Evangelicals) & Jewish (esp. Reform) religious organizations. This should not be altogether surprising, as the churches played a major role in the original abolitionist movement. Ask your denomination what they're doing about this issue.

• National Geographic offers an article from international anti-slavery activist Kevin Bales: "How We Can end Slavery." It's fine as far as it goes, but short on specifics and fails to deliver on its promise. Even his organization, FreetheSlaves.net, has a mediocre web site that blurs the distinction between slavery and issues like child labour, which may be connected in some cases but aren't in others.

• Much more detailed information is available via HumanTrafficking.com. Extra points for having a blog.

The issue of slavery is a perennial challenge to all who value freedom. It will not end in my lifetime, or even my childrens' lifetime. Yet as we look back on the past 2 centuries of change and progress, we know that hope is possible. Slavery no longer sits in the open, holding its banner aloft as the natural order if things; it has been reduced to creeping in shadows, and thriving on neglect.

Let us remind ourselves who we are, and whence we came. These evils are real - but if we remember our heritage and remain true to it, hope can be real, too.