Fighting Slavery in a Modern Age

Thanks to leap year, I have one more day to celebrate Black History Month. It's a great opportunity to look back and see where our nation and our world has come in eliminating slavery and what we've done for human rights and equality for all. But what if it's not over?

Slavery seems to have been prevalent throughout history, some of the earliest records even in the Code of Hammurabi (1760 BC). Even in the colonization of the Americas it appears to have been present and come over in the 1600s shortly after the first colonizers. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, an estimated 12 million Africans were shipped as slaves to the Americas.




At this point slavery also began to be more commonly practiced in Europe, especially Britain. Slaves were used both domestically in household labor as well as in naval expeditions. As Stephen Farrell points out in his article "Driving Change Through Parliament":

"The simple fact was that, for most of the commercial and landed elite, the British slave trade was an accepted and unquestioned part of the nation's growing imperial and naval supremacy.
If its barbaric nature was sometimes recognised, its continuance was nevertheless considered essential to the success of the prevailing economic system. "

 Such were the general sentiments until William Willberforce came along. As you may remember from the popular movie Amazing Grace, William fought for abolition and although he was met with a lot of push back from the general members of parliament he was eventually able to pass the The Slave Trade Abolition Act of 1807 which prohibited trading Africans into slavery and led to eventual destruction of slavery in England.

Years later Americans also began to feel similarly and the American Civil war broke out (of course it is much more complicated, but this is the nutshell version). As the abolitionist Northern states were able to win this war the eventual result was the abolition of slaves.

Yay! No more slaves! We can all live in equality and freedom. Or do we?

I love this video which addresses one of the issues of human trafficking and early marriage. Although not every case of  early marriage is human trafficking and not every case modern slavery has to do with early marriage, it is something to think about.

 In our modern society a whole new form of slavery has begun to emerge, most commonly known as Human Trafficking.  Defined by the U.S. Department of State as:

"The United States government considers trafficking in persons to include all of the criminal conduct involved in forced labor and sex trafficking, essentially the conduct involved in reducing or holding someone in compelled service. ..Individuals may be trafficking victims regardless of whether they once consented, participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked, were transported into the exploitative situation, or were simply born into a state of servitude. Despite a term that seems to connote movement, at the heart of the phenomenon of trafficking in persons are the many forms of enslavement, not the activities involved in international transportation."


It is estimated by the United Nations that 700,000 to 4 million women and children are tracked around the world annually resulting in a $7 billion dollar annual business. Because slavery is illegal in every country it is difficult to track the exact numbers of those trafficked, but it is clear that it is a problem. Unlike slavery in the 17th and 18th centuries, slaves today are amazingly cheap. The average price for a human slave: $70-150 USD. With the potential to create $70,000- $125,000 profit for the owner, this is a much more profitable business than it was in days gone by.

In the United States alone it's estimated that 17,500 individuals are brought into the United States and held against their will every year. "But that's for dirty cities, like New York or Los Angeles," you may be thinking, "not in Utah." According to the National Human Trafficking Resource Center Utah State Report, in 2011 there were 68 reports of trafficking. 68 reported cases. In 2010 one of the largest cases in U.S. history regarding Thais human trafficked for labor happened in Utah.

Technology plays a great part in all of this, both for propagating trafficking and for eliminating it. Since I'm focusing on hope and what we can do, I'd like to share a few examples of technology being used to help eliminate trafficking.

•  Craigslist shut down it's "erotic services" section because it was found that it was being used to sell women for sex. 
• The super bowl,often a hub for sex trafficking, (in my opinion this is largely due to its conglomeration of horny, angry, and happy men who are from out of town providing anonymity. This is found at many major sporting events). In 2012, however, trafficking was put on the agenda and was greatly reduced.
• even if you don't see slaves working for you, you may be surprised to find out that many of the products you use in your every day life were the product of slavery production.  Slaveryfootprint.org is a great website to help you analyze your consumption methods and determine your slavery footprint (mine is 26)
  

Moral of the story: Human Trafficking is a serious issue around the world. It's a serious issue in America. It's a serious issue in Utah. It wasn't right then. It's not right now. Nothing will change unless we change it. Make a stance, take a chance, change your world.