“There are more slaves right now than there have ever been.”
Where or what is being referenced by this factoid you see often?
If you watch the videos on Mali carefully and read up on how to tell the different ethnic and tribal groups, you will see real live slavery. North Africa is home to several groups which have ancestral master/slave relationships.
I saw a story on the BBC (IIRC) identifying the xxxxxxxx as traditional slaves of the Touareg
There’s a lot of slavery in central Africa, where people are kidnapped in raids on villages. Also, in some parts of the world, young girls are sold into sexual slavery. I don’t have the numbers to prove or disprove the statement in question, but it’s true that there are a lot of slaves in the world today.
Here’s a long article on modern-day slavery, the best introduction I could find quickly:
Google north korean slavery.
Very sad stuff.
McDonalds.
“Modern day slavery” covers all kinds of ground.
Probably the most common thing you’ll find is sex trafficking. Women and girls either voluntarily or are tricked into traveling some place to become sex workers. They incur a debt for their travel costs, as well as their room and board, which they are expected to pay fully before they are free. Often their passports are confiscated and they are subject to threats of force against them or their families back home. Sometimes the amount they are expected to cover exceeds what they can realistically learn. Even if they do meet their obligations, there is no guarantee that they will be allowed to go free. In any case, it doesn’t take much imagination to picture what being a trafficked sex worker is like, and there are plenty of articles out there if you want to read testimony from those who have escaped.
The same thing happens for domestic work. Often this will be in-country, and it’s not uncommon for children to be pressed into service as household help. Children are also trafficked for agricultural and industrial work, sometimes for large commercial operations. In areas without strong children’s right laws, the whole thing can get a little murky.
Debt-bondage is common in some areas, where adults are obligated to work for low wages until they pay an often unplayable debt. Some sweatshops still engage in slave-like practices. Bride-buying is another issue in some regions, with women being trafficked as wives. Forced marriages are a less cash-intensive variation on the theme.
Old school Sahelian slavery is a different thing, and it works out kind of a like a mix of a caste system and feudalism. One family may be historically obligated to work for another family, but they’ll often otherwise live fairly free day to day lives. In other cases, they’ll work another family’s land and return a percentage of the harvest. In recent years, lawlessness has lead to more abuses and there are some pretty disturbing stories out there, especially of sexual abuse. This kind of slavery is very integrated in the social system (much like a caste system), so it’s about discrimination as social mobility as much as force.
As an aside, I once took a long boat ride to Timbuktu on a pirogue manned by a slave family. It was an odd situation to be in, what wit the rest of the world having decided long ago that slavery was Not. Cool.
Believe it or not, we have just had this in the UK:-
Jail terms handed down to forced labour Connors family
*The family tricked around 37 homeless men into living with them on the promise of work, money and accommodation. They then made them carry out hard labour for little or no pay.
The men, many of whom were alcoholics or had mental health issues, were housed in crammed, squalid caravans at the Beggars Roost traveller site at Staverton. During the trial, it emerged they were given little food and were subjected to brutal beatings.*
I think you could class that as slavery.
Be careful with State Department stuff - particularly from the Bush era, as policy in this area was heavily driven by faith groups more concerned with the sex aspect than the trafficking aspect. A good evidence-based look at the subject is here (PDF).