Slavery - A Free World?

At the lower end of the spectrum we talk about being "wage slaves" or "debt slaves". The other end of the spectrum includes slave labour, forced marriage, child slavery, child soldiers, sex slavery & trafficking. People are seen as property. They are bought & sold & held against their will, sometimes by elite minorities.

The slave trade goes right back to ancient Greece in the 5thC & 6thC BC. The Romans enslaved whole populations they had defeated. Medieval Europe was heavily involved in the slave trade. Islamic Empires enslaved black Africans. Amerindians - the Aztecs & Inca, enslaved those they conquered & didn't kill. An estimated 12 million Africans arrived in the Americas in the 16th - 19th centuries. Nazi Germany enslaved 12 million people.

Slavery didn't start to be abolished until the 19th century. The last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981.

Human beings have a long tradition of enslaving other human beings they conveniently see as less human than themselves. Or they simply don't care about what they are doing. In 1999 there were estimated to be up to 27 million slaves in the world. The majority were women and children. It is estimated that between 1.5 and 1.8 million people are trafficked per annum. That is bound to be an under estimate.

Today slavery is big business. Child & slave labour provides the goods that big multinational companies sell for unbelievable profit. We - all of us buy those goods and ignore the human cost. Slavery crosses borders & continents. It is condoned as a price that has to be paid to fill the consumer demand for cheap goods. It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "slave to fashion".

The sex trade feeds what seems to be the insatiable desire of men for every kind of sex with boys, girls, men & women. Sex is a commodity & there is a profit to be made.

Given the long history how do you stop it? Is it even possible? I don't know. But I do know that we are all tarnished by it if we ignore the brutal reality of it. In this world of instantaneous communication we cannot say we didn't know. If we know and do nothing we are as complicit as those who actually perpetrate it.