Slavery, A Modern Day Injustice – Part 1

“to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke” Isaiah 58:6

LARGER, MORE PROFITABLE, & MORE PROLIFIC
The modern day slave trade is an obscure, worldwide criminal enterprise larger, more profitable, and more prolific than at any other time in history. Its traces are easily evident to governments committed to the rule of law, informed activists, conscientious consumers, and recently the Church. Prime-time news media documentaries and Hollywood movie released in the last few years have taken advantage of the ratings-boosting, ticket-selling topic of the global sex trafficking market. But the inhumane reality of human trafficking is largely hidden to most everyone; else even though normal consumer habits bring its long arm directly into most of our homes.

For example, many middle class Americans begin their day by being roused from sleep by a cell phone or alarm clock. They get out of bed, put on warm cozy cotton robes, and then stumble toward their kitchens. As they shuffle their feet across ornate hallway rugs toward their expensive coffee pots serving up piping hot java they are unaware they have played the far too common role, maybe up to four times before even completely waking up, of unwillingly and unwittingly supporting human trafficking.

The modern day slave trade thrives while the average good-natured citizen goes about uninformed.

DEFINITION OF HUMAN TRAFFICKING
In an effort to combat the scourge of modern human trafficking and slavery, the United Nations authored a convention in 2000, ratified by over one hundred and seventeen nations to date, which defined trafficking 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. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.” (UNODC 2000; italics mine)

This almost universally accepted, government recognized, United Nations written definition of human trafficking and slavery allows for little misunderstanding of what exactly constitutes exploitation. From the “restavecs” (children sold into domestic service) of the Caribbean to the imprisoned Chinese who literally wake up in shock to find an organ missing, and every conceivable people group and ill in between, there are myriad examples providing chilling clarity to the full scope of human trafficking.

Furthermore, the careful wording also makes room for yet-to-be devised forms of human exploitation.

NUMBER OF EXPLOITED WORLDWIDE
According to Developments, a magazine and e-zine published by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development, some sources cite the number exploited worldwide is as high as 200 million (Jermyn n.d.). Kevin Bales, author of Disposable People, is the world’s leading expert on contemporary slavery. He estimates the “number of slaves in the world today is 27 million.” (K. Bales 2000) While there is a very wide discrepancy between the two figures, most likely the result of differing definitions for trafficking, there is no doubting that tens of millions of souls, made in the image of God, have been forced, coerced, abducted, and or deceived into a nightmare of slavery no one should ever endure. Many government bodies, including the United Nations and a bevy of non-governmental abolitionist organizations cite Bales’ more conservative figure of 27 million when reporting on the quantity of enslaved peoples found worldwide.

TRULY WORLDWIDE
The scars of the massive exploitation of humans can be found in most every country. In the United States, “17,500 new victims are trafficked” across the borders every year; estimates of the enslaved in the U.S. number “well over 100,000.” (Batstone 2007). But the ravages of what traffickers consider disposable people can most easily be found in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal where “perhaps 15 to 20 million” (K. Bales 2000) are caught in a web of forced bondage that for some, was inherited from a debt incurred by a family member generations ago.

As could intuitively be deduced, most exploitation occurs in the impoverished third world; such as in the countries of South America (e.g. Brazil) and Southeast Asia (e.g. Thailand). There are also many well documented reports detailing the injustice of exploitation in northern and western Africa (e.g. Uganda); all areas known for soul-crushing despotism, callous government corruption, and hope-eviscerating poverty. But not to be overshadowed, the dark cloud of human trafficking in industrialized nations account for over 50% of the profiteering from the new slave trade.

The modern day slave trade truly is worldwide.

MORE THAN 400 YEARS OF THE TRANSATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE
Humanity United, a Redwood, California based not-for-profit committed to building a world where modern day slavery is no longer possible, believes modern day slavery is “the third-largest illegal global business, after drugs and weapons.” According to a 2005 report by the Director General of the International Labour Office,

“The total illicit profits produced in one year by trafficked forced labourers are estimated to be about US $32 billion. Half of this profit is made in industrialized countries (US $15.5 billion) and close to one-third in Asia (US $9.7 billion). Globally, this represents an average of approximately US $13,000 per year for each forced labourer, or US $1,100 per month.”

Considering the average worldwide cost of a modern day slave is around US $40, it is easy to understand why the global slave trade has so rapidly returned onto the world stage; pure gross profit. These numbers help one to understand the hard-to-swallow truth, there are more slaves today than the sum of all slaves trafficked from Africa during the 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade.

EXAMPLES OF MODERN DAY SLAVERY
Today’s slave trade, comprised of over 27 million souls worldwide, is active in many industries. A few specific examples of the forced and coerced labor endured by cheap and sometimes free slaves includes

work in the kilns of southeast Asia used for brick production,

the harvesting of cane fields in the Dominican Republic famous for sugar exports around the world,

gold and coltan mining by children in Africa, the sale and prostitution of girls as young at five in Thailand,

and finally the savage child soldiers of Uganda fighting wars for ruthless governments whose wicked policies they are unable to fully comprehend.

These few examples serve as indicators to the width and breathe of the treachery to which the human heart can descend. Ours is a sad new world in which slavery is far too common.

Should the church have a voice in this matters? If so, where then is the church?

To Be Continued…