More Modern Slavery

So today in my Modern Slavery class we were doing a brief overview of the history of slavery, but now we are getting into actual modern slavery.
Here's some things that literally made me gasp...

-There are approximately 27 million slaves in the world
-There are 50,000 slaves in the United States (the majority come from China, Mexico, and Vietnam)
-There are 15-20 million slaves in Southeast Asia (India, Pakistan, Nepal, etc.)
-The majority of slavery is agricultural (sugar, rice, etc); second is brick making and mining; third is war slaves (for example the children in Africa that are kidnapped from their homes and forced to kill each other in war); fourth is a mix of domestic and sex slavery
-The United States purchases the most slave-made products in the world (Coca-Cola being a huge one for sugar in Brazil).
Literally everything we have was probably slave-made. The slaves in Brazil that make the charcoal that is used to make our cars; the ones in Brazil and other countries that farm the sugar cane that is used in practically everything; slaves that sew our clothes; slaves that weave our cloth; slaves that make our carpets; slaves that make our phones; etc... It's appalling....

The average cost of a slave in the 1800's was equivalent to about $40,000-$80,000, bringing in only about 5% profit.
Nowadays, a slave, if even paid for at all, costs about $40-$200 on average (but sex slaves are often higher if they are younger and depending on the ethnicity) and bring in anywhere from 200-800% profit.
That's cheaper than an iPhone... People are being SOLD- their entire lives are being SOLD for less than what we paid for our phones. It disgusts me, it truly does.

The real question that we focused on answering was How on Earth can we stop slavery?! And there's really only one way- by having political will (making it less economically friendly), and by having the ability to protect the victims. I don't see this being very likely in my lifetime, but I hope that some day slavery can be completely stopped throughout the world.

I want to leave you with some websites that I have seen...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1554064/US-used-forced-labour-to-build-Iraq-embassy.html
The United States enslaving middle eastern folks to build the worlds largest Embassy in Baghdad...

http://www.crisisaid.org/ICAPDF/Trafficking/traffickstats.pdf
Slavery in America...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Brazil
Slavery in Brazil

http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/05/26/the_cost_of_slavery/
A discussion on slavery with Kevin Bales (one of the most well-known and respected slavery researchers and authors in the world)

http://www.invisiblechildren.com/our-story
Invisible Children- the organization trying to stop the kidnapping of children in Africa for war.

It makes me so sad... it truly does.


I am just so blessed to have been born in America to such an amazing family and in the area I was born in. I feel so blessed as well to have had all of the opportunities I've had in my life as well as the ones to come. It's so crazy to think that kids in India literally work every single day all day and will never stop until the day they die. I am truly a blessed woman and I have to remember to never take that for granted. This world is so corrupt, but it's not hopeless...


LJ.