Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to occur in present-day society. Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million to 46 million, depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used.
The estimated number of slaves is debated, as there is no universally
agreed definition of modern slavery; those in slavery are often
difficult to identify, and adequate statistics are often not available.
The International Labour Organization
estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in
some form of slavery today. 24.9 million people are in forced labor, of
whom 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as
domestic work, construction or agriculture; 4.8 million persons in
forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million persons in forced labor
imposed by state authorities. 15.4 million people are in forced
marriage.
Definition
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons agency of the United States Department of State says that "'modern slavery', 'trafficking in persons', and 'human trafficking'
have been used as umbrella terms for the act of recruiting, harboring,
transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labor or
commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion".
Besides these, a number of different terms are used in the US federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, including "involuntary servitude", "slavery" or "practices similar to slavery", "debt bondage", and "forced labor".
According to American professor Kevin Bales, co-founder and former president of the non-governmental organization and advocacy group Free the Slaves,
modern slavery occurs "when a person is under the control of another
person who applies violence and force to maintain that control, and the
goal of that control is exploitation".
The impact of slavery is expanded when targeted at vulnerable groups
such as children. According to this definition, research from the Walk Free Foundation based on its Global Slavery Index 2018 estimated that there were about 40.3 million slaves around the world.
In another estimate that suggests the number is around 45.8 million,
it is estimated that around 10 million of these contemporary slaves are
children.
Bales warned that, because slavery is officially abolished everywhere,
the practice is illegal, and thus more hidden from the public and
authorities. This makes it impossible to obtain exact figures from
primary sources. The best that can be done is to estimate based on
secondary sources, such as UN investigations, newspaper articles,
government reports, and figures from NGOs.
Modern slavery persists for many of the same reasons older variations
did: it is an economically beneficial practice despite the ethical
concerns. The problem has been able to escalate in recent years due to
the disposability of slaves and the fact that the cost of slaves has dropped significantly.
Causes
Since
slavery has been officially abolished, enslavement no longer revolves
around legal ownership, but around illegal control. Two fundamental
changes are the move away from the forward purchase of slave labour, and
the existence of slaves as an employment category. While the statistics
suggest that the 'market' for exploitative labour is booming, the
notion that humans are purposefully sold and bought from an existing
pool is outdated. While such basic transactions do still occur, in
contemporary cases people become trapped in slavery-like conditions in
various ways.
Modern slavery is often seen as a by-product of poverty. In countries that lack education, the rule of law, anarchy
and poor societal structure can create an environment that fosters the
acceptance and propagation of slavery. Slavery is most prevalent in
impoverished countries and those with vulnerable minority communities,
though it also exists in developed countries. Tens of thousands toil in
slave-like conditions in industries such as mining, farming, and
factories, producing goods for domestic consumption or export to more
prosperous nations.
In the older form of slavery, slave-owners spent more on getting
slaves. It was more difficult for them to be disposed of. The cost of
keeping them healthy was considered a better investment than getting
another slave to replace them. In modern slavery people are easier to
get at a lower price so replacing them when exploiters run into problems
becomes easier. Slaves are then used in areas where they could easily
be hidden while also creating a profit for the exploiter. Slaves are
more attractive for unpleasant work, and less for pleasant work.
Modern slavery can be quite profitable and corrupt governments tacitly allow it, despite it being outlawed by international treaties such as Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery and local laws. Total annual revenues of traffickers were estimated in 2014 to over $150 billion dollars, though profits are substantially lower. American slaves in 1809 were sold for around the equivalent of US$40,000 in today's money. Today, a slave can be bought for $90.
Kevin Bales once said in a TED Talk, “This is an economic crime,”
“People do not enslave people to be mean to them; they do it to make a
profit.”
Types
Slavery by Descent and Chattel Slavery
Slavery by descent, also called chattel slavery, is the form most often associated with the word "slavery". In chattel slavery, the enslaved person is considered the personal property
(chattel) of someone else, and can usually be bought and sold. It stems
historically either from conquest, where a conquered person is
enslaved, as in the Roman Empire or Ottoman Empire, or from slave raiding, as in the Atlantic slave trade or Arab slave trade.
In the 21st Century, almost every country has legally abolished chattel
slavery, but the number of people currently enslaved around the world
is far greater than the number of slaves during the historical Atlantic
slave trade.
Since the 2014 Civil War in Libya,
and the subsequent breakdown of law and order, there have been reports
of enslaved migrants being sold in public, open slave markets in the
country.
Mauritania has a long history with slavery.
Chattel slavery was formally made illegal in the country but the laws
against it have gone largely unenforced. It is estimated that around
90,000 people (over 2% of Mauritania's population) are slaves. In
addition, forced marriage and child prostitution are not criminalised.
Debt bondage can also be passed down to descendants, like chattel slavery.
Those trapped in the system of sexual slavery in the modern world are often effectively chattel, especially when they are forced into prostitution.
Government-forced labor and conscription
Government-forced labor, also known as state-sponsored labor,
is defined by the International Labor Organization as events "which
persons are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation,
or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity
papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities."
When the threats come from the government the threats can be much
different. Many governments that participate in forced labor shut down
their connections with the surrounding countries to prevent citizens
from leaving.
In North Korea,
the government forces many people to work for the state, both inside
and outside North Korea itself, sometimes for many years. The 2018
Global Slavery Index estimated that 2.8 million people were slaves in
the country. The value of all the labor done by North Koreans for the government is estimated at US$975 million, with dulgyeokdae (youth workers) forced to do dangerous construction work, and inminban (women and girl workers) forced to making clothing in sweatshops. The workers are often unpaid. Additionally, North Korea's army of 1.2 million soldiers is often made to work on construction projects unrelated to defense. The government has had as many as 100,000 workers abroad.
In Eritrea,
an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people are in an indefinite military
service program which amounts to mass slavery, according to UN
investigators. Their report also found sexual slavery and other forced
labor.
The U.S. Customs and Border Protection blocked the importation of black diamonds from Zimbabwe in October 2019, according to a report by Bloomberg News. Zimbabwe, in turn, accused the U.S. government of lying about forced labor at a state-owned diamond mine.
About 35–40 countries are currently enforcing military conscription of some sort, even if it is only temporary service.
It is imperative to note that government-forced labor comes in
different forms as governments have also been known to participate in
forced labor practices that do not include military service. In Uzbekistan, for example, the government coerces students and state workers to harvest cotton, of which the country is a main exporter, every year; forcefully abandoning their other responsibilities in the process.
Of course this isn't the only type of slavery found in this example as
the use of students, including those in primary, secondary, and higher
education, means that child labor is also prominent.
Prison labor
In China's system of labor prisons (formerly called laogai),
millions of prisoners have been subject to forced, unpaid labor. The
laogai system is estimated to currently house between 500,000 and 2
million prisoners, and to have caused tens of millions of deaths. In parallel with laogai, China operated the smaller Re-education through labor system of prisons up until 2013. In addition to both of these, China is also operating forced labor camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning hundreds of thousands (possibly as many as a million) of Muslims, Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities and political dissidents.
In 1865, the United States passed the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution,
which banned slavery and involuntary servitude "except as punishment
for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", providing a legal basis for slavery to continue in the country. As of 2018, many prisoners in the US perform work. In Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, prisoners are not paid at all for their work. In other states, as of 2011, prisoners were paid between $0.23 and $1.15 per hour. Federal Prison Industries paid inmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017. In many cases the penal work is forced, with prisoners being punished by solitary confinement if they refuse to work. From 2010 to 2015 and again in 2016 and in 2018, some prisoners in the US refused to work,
protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced
labor. Strike leaders are currently punished with indefinite solitary
confinement. Forced prison labor occurs in both public/government-run prisons and private prisons.
The prison labor industry makes over $1 billion USD per year selling
products that inmates make, while inmates are paid very little or
nothing in return. In California, 2,500 incarcerated workers are fighting wildfires for only $1 per hour, which saves the state as much as $100 million a year.
In North Korea, tens of thousands of prisoners may be held in
forced labor camps. Prisoners suffer harsh conditions and have been
forced to dig their own graves and to throw rocks at the dead body of another prisoner. At Yodok Concentration Camp, children and political prisoners were subject to forced labor. Yodok closed in 2014 and its prisoners were transferred to other prisons.
Bonded labor
Bonded labor, also known as Debt bondage
and peonage, occurs when people give themselves into slavery as a
security against a loan or when they inherit a debt from a relative.
The cycle begins when people take extreme loans under the condition
that they work off the debt. The "loan" is designed so that it can never
be paid off, and is often passed down for generations. People become
trapped in this system working ostensibly towards repayment though they
are often forced to work far past the original amount they owe. They
work under the force of threats and abuse. Sometimes the debts last a
few years, and sometimes the debts are even passed onto future
generations.
Bonded labor is used across a variety of industries in order to produce products for consumption around the world. It is most common in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.
In India, the majority of bonded laborers are Dalits (Untouchables) and Adivasis (indigenous tribespeople).
Puspal, a former brick kiln worker in Punjab, India stated in an
interview to antislavery.org; "We do not stop even if we are ill - what
if our debt is increasing? So we don't dare to stop."
In India, when compared to the price of land, paid labor or oxen, the
price of slaves costs 95% less than in the past. While a strong law was
enacted, The Bonded Labour System (Abolition) Act, convictions are almost impossible and the fines are often less than $2.
Forced migrant labor
People may be enticed to migrate with the promise of work, only to have their documents seized and be forced to work under the threat of violence to them or their families.
Undocumented immigrants may also be taken advantage of; as without
legal residency, they often have no legal recourse. Along with sex
slavery, this is the form of slavery most often encountered in wealthy
countries such as the United States, in Western Europe, and in the
Middle East.
In the United Arab Emirates,
some foreign workers are exploited and more or less enslaved. The
majority of the UAE resident population are foreign migrant workers
rather than local Emirati citizens. The country has a kafala
system which ties migrant workers to local Emirati sponsors with very
little government oversight. This has often led to forced labor and
human trafficking. In 2017, the UAE passed a law to protect the rights of domestic workers.
Vietnamese teenagers are trafficked to the United Kingdom
and forced to work in illegal cannabis farms. When police raid the
cannabis farms, trafficked victims are typically sent to prison.
In the United States, various industries have been known to take advantage of forced migrant labor. During the 2010 New York State Fair, 19 migrants who were in the country legally from Mexico to work in a food truck were essentially enslaved by their employer.
The men were paid around ten percent of what they were promised, worked
far longer days than they were contracted to, and would be deported if
they had quit their job as this would be a violation of their visas.
Sex slavery
Along with migrant slavery, forced prostitution is the form of
slavery most often encountered in wealthy regions such as the United
States, in Western Europe, and in the Middle East. It is the primary
form of slavery in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia, particularly in
Moldova and Laos. Many child sex slaves
are trafficked from these areas to the West and the Middle East. An
estimated 20% of slaves to date are active in the sex industry.
Sexual exploitation can also become a form of debt bondage when
enslavers insist that victims work in the sex industry to pay for basic
needs and transportation.
In 2005, the Gulf Times reported that boys from Nepal had
been lured to India and enslaved for sex. Many of these boys had also
been subject to male genital mutilation (castration).
Many of those who become victims of sex slavery initially do so
willingly under the guise that they will be performing traditional sex
work, only to become trapped for extended periods of time, such as those
involved in Nigeria's human trafficking circuit.
Forced marriage and child marriage
Mainly driven by the culture in certain regions, early or forced marriage
is a form of slavery that affects millions of women and girls all over
the world. When families cannot support their children, the daughters
are often married off to the males of wealthier, more powerful families.
These men are often significantly older than the girls. The females are
forced into lives whose main purpose is to serve their husbands. This
often fosters an environment for physical, verbal and sexual abuse.
Forced marriages also happen in developed nations. In the United
Kingdom there were 3,546 reports to the police of forced marriage over
three years from 2014 to 2016.
In the United States over 200,000 minors were legally married from 2002 to 2017, with the youngest being only 10 years old. Most were married to adults. Currently 48 US states, as well as D.C. and Puerto Rico, allow marriage of minors as long as there is judicial consent, parental consent or if the minor is pregnant. In 2017–2018, several states began passing laws to either restrict child marriage or ban it altogether.
Bride-buying is the act of purchasing a bride as property, in a similar manner to chattel slavery. It can also be related to human trafficking.
Child labor
Children comprise about 26% of the slaves today.
Although children can legally engage in certain forms of work, children
can also be found in slavery or slavery-like situations. Forced Begging
is a common way that children are forced to participate in labor
without their consent. Most are domestic workers or work in cocoa, cotton or fishing
industries. Many are trafficked and sexually exploited. In war-torn
countries, children have been kidnapped and sold to political parties to
use as child soldiers. Forced child labor is the dominant form of slavery in Haiti.
Child Soldiers
are children who may be trafficked from their homes and forced or
coerced by armed forces. The armed forces could be government armed
forces, paramilitary organizations, or rebel groups. While in these
groups the children may be forced to work as cooks, guards, servants or
spies. It is common for both boys and girls to be sexually abused while in these groups.
Fishing industry
According to Human Rights Watch,
Thailand's billion-dollar fish export industry remains plagued with
human rights maltreatment in spite of government vows to stamp out
servitude in its angling industry.
Human Rights Watch conducted interviews with 248 fishermen, it
documented the forced labor of trafficked workers in the Thai fishing
industry. Trafficking victims are often tricked by brokers' false
promises of "good" factory jobs, then forced onto fishing boats where
they are trapped, bought and sold like livestock, and held against their
will for months or years at a time, forced to work grueling 22-hour
days in dangerous conditions. Those who resist or try to run away are
beaten, tortured, and often killed. This is commonplace because of the disposability of unfree laborers.
Despite some improvements, the situation has not changed much
since a large-scale survey of almost 500 fishers in 2012, that found
almost one in five "reported working against their will with the penalty
that would prevent them from leaving".
Occupations
In addition to sex slavery, modern slaves are often forced to work in certain occupations. Common occupations include:
- Small-scale building work, such as laying driveways, and other labor.
- Car washing by hand
- Domestic servitude, sometimes with sexual exploitation.
- Nail salons (cosmetic). Many people are trafficked from Vietnam to the UK for this work.
- Fishing, mainly associated with Thailand's sea food industry.
- Manufacturing – Many prisoners in the US are forced to manufacture products as diverse as mattresses, spectacles, underwear, road signs and body armour.
- Agriculture and forestry – Prisoners in the United States and China are often forced to do farming and forestry work.
- In North Korea, dulgyeokdae (youth workers) are often forced to work in construction and inminban (women workers) are forced to work in clothing sweatshops.
Signs that someone may have been forced into slavery include a lack
of identity documents, lack of personal possessions, clothing that is
unsuitable or has seen much wear, poor living conditions, a reluctance
to make eye contact, unwillingness to talk, and unwillingness to seek
help. In the UK people are encouraged to report suspicions to a modern
slavery telephone helpline.
Trafficking
The United Nations have defined human trafficking as follows:
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 labor or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.
According to United States Department of State
data, an "estimated 600,000 to 820,000 men, women, and children [are]
trafficked across international borders each year, approximately 70
percent are women and girls and up to 50 percent are minors. The data
also illustrates that the majority of transnational victims are
trafficked into commercial sexual exploitation."
However, "the alarming enslavement of people for purposes of labor
exploitation, often in their own countries, is a form of human
trafficking that can be hard to track from afar". It is estimated that
50,000 people are trafficked every year in the United States.
In recent years, the internet and popular social networking sites
have become tools that traffickers use to find vulnerable people who
they can then exploit. A 2017 Reuters report discusses how a woman is suing Facebook
for negligence as she speculated that executives were aware of a
situation that occurred back in 2012 where was sexually abused and
trafficked by someone posing as her "friend". Social media and smartphone apps are also used to sell the slaves.
In 2016, a Washington Post article exposed that the Obama administration placed migrant children with human traffickers.
They failed to do proper background checks of adults who claimed the
children, allowed sponsors to take custody of multiple unrelated
children, and regularly placed children in homes without visiting the
locations. Several Guatemalan teens were found being held captive by
traffickers and forced to work at a local egg farm in Ohio.
Organizational efforts against slavery
In
the last two decades, as slavery has become more widely recognized as a
formidable global epidemic, multiple governmental organizations have
begun taking action to address the problem. The State Department's annual Trafficking In Persons Report
assigns grades to every nation in a tier-system based "not on the size
of the country’s problem but on the extent of governments’ efforts to
meet the TVPA’s minimum standards for the elimination of human
trafficking."
The governments credited with the strongest response to modern slavery are the Netherlands, the United States, the United Kingdom, Sweden, Australia, Portugal, Croatia, Spain, Belgium, Germany and Norway.
In the United Kingdom, the government has instituted major reforms in
the legal system through the Criminal Finance Act effective from
September 30, 2017. Under the act, there will be transparency in regards
to interbank information sharing with law enforcement agencies to help
to crack down on money laundering agencies related to contemporary
slavery. The Act also aims at reducing the incidence of tax evasion
attributed to the lucrative slave trade conducted under the domain of
the law.
Despite this the UK government has been refusing asylum and deporting
children trafficked to the UK as slaves. This puts the children at risk
of being subject to control by slavery gangs a second time. It also
deters child victims from coming forward with information.
In contrast, the governments accused of taking the least action against it are North Korea, Iran, Eritrea, Equatorial Guinea, Hong Kong, Central African Republic, Papua New Guinea, Guinea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Sudan.
While countries can be scrutinized for not taking ample action to
combat slavery within their borders, there is little that can be done
as there are few diplomatic options for low-risk nations to consider.
Statistics
Prevalence of modern slavery, as a percentage of the population, by country. These estimates are from the Walk Free Foundation. Estimates by sources with broader definitions of slavery can be higher.
Modern slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with just the forced labor aspect generating US $150 billion each year.
The Global Slavery Index (2018) estimated that roughly 40.3 million
individuals are currently caught in modern slavery, with 71% of those
being female, and 1 in 4 being children. India is first with 8 million, then China (3.6 million), Russia (794,000), United States (403,000), Brazil (369,000), Germany (167,000), Italy (145,000), United Kingdom (136,000), France (129,000), Japan (37,000), Canada (17,000) and Australia (15,000).
Various jurisdictions now require large commercial organizations
to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement in regard to their
supply chains each financial year (e.g. California, UK, Australia).
The Walk Free Foundation reported in 2018 that slavery in advanced
democratic nations is much more common than previously known, in
particular the United States and Great Britain,
which have 403,000 and 136,000 slaves respectively. Andrew Forrest,
founder of the organization, said that "The United States is one of the
most advanced countries in the world yet has more than 400,000 modern
slaves working under forced labor conditions."
In March 2020, the government of UK revealed that modern slavery
rose by 51 per cent, until March 2019. The government put the number of
registered cases in March 2019 at 5,144, as compared to 3,412 a year
before that.
