SPECIAL Slavery: Modern slavery a worldwide responsibility

Most people believe that slavery ended during the 19th century as one nation after another implemented social reforms and outlawed the practice. Unfortunately, legislating the end of slavery did not mean that it came to an end. Today, slavery is far more widespread than it has ever been at any time in world history.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Chances are, most people have or consume products daily that were made at least in part with slave labor. Slaves are used to make a myriad of products. Mostly, they work in agriculture but they also work in brickmaking, mining, textiles and fabrics, leather working, prostitution, gems and jewelry, carpet making, working as servants, cutting down forests, making charcoal, and working in markets and shops.

Slave labor in the Third World, often produces the food, minerals, and other materials which we consume in our modern homes. So slavery isn't simply a Third World concern, it is truly international.

In some extreme cases, children are kidnapped from their first world homes, and turned into slaves. Sometimes overseas, and sometimes in the very communities into which they were born. Prostitution is common throughout the first world, and it is one of the most widespread forms of slavery.

Debt slavery also common and snares millions worldwide. Debt slavery is a form of slavery were a person is paid, but they generally see very little of that money. They are paid so little, that they cannot sustain themselves without remaining in bondage. They are entirely dependent on their overlords.

Part of the reason why slavery is so pandemic is because the cost of a slave has gone down. Slave labor is both cheap and plentiful. In the antebellum American South, an African male slave might fetch a price around $1,000. In today's money, that's $40,000. As such expensive labor, they were treated as a valuable commodity.

This didn't mean they weren't abused, aside from the institution of slavery itself which is its own form of abuse; slaves often faced malnutrition, poor sanitation, substandard living conditions, and a whole host of other abuses at the hands of their masters. In spite of that, slaves were not seen as a disposable commodity. Today however, they are.

In many countries, it is a cruel fact that a slave has a limited useful life. This is evident in brothels throughout the world. The typical prostitute forced into slavery, often as a child, can expect to see 10 to 15 men per night. She may collect hundreds of dollars, and she will see very little of that money. Often, within a few short years she will have a number of sexually transmitted diseases including HIV. As these diseases ravage her body, and she is denied health care, she soon becomes unsuitable for the work and is ultimately discarded.

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Discarded slaves become homeless, left on the streets to die often unable to return to their families or even if they manage to do so, the risk of being shunned.

As world citizens, we have a responsibility to ensure that people are not treated as disposable commodities. Slavery is the highest form of theft, for the slaver does not simply take money but he also takes lives. When people choose to consume a slave-produced products, they simply encourage more of the same vile activity.

Around the world, international campaigns to shed light on the issue and ultimately bring an end to the practice of slavery are gaining momentum. It is hoped that these programs, with the support of everyday people in every country of the world, will effectively wipe this scourge from the face of the earth. Indeed, it is the only thing that will. 

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