modern day slavery essay outline

modern day slavery essay outline

The Urgency to Address Modern Day Slavery

1. Introduction

The character of modern slavery is a hidden and complex issue. Bales argues that slavery is often an unnoticed aspect of the rich and the new world, seen as a backward institution confined to the third world and with no part in modern economics. The truth is that slavery still exists in all countries of the world and has become an integral component of global industries. Due to the lack of knowledge on this issue, the very mention of modern slavery can provoke disbelief and even a dismissal of its existence. A prime example of this was an encounter with a US senator in 1998 who, upon being told about the existence of slavery, replied “gee, we ought to do something about that.” The common misconception of slavery belonging to an era long past needs to be overturned through a worldwide slavery awareness campaign.

In present day, modern slavery operates beneath the surface, making it difficult for the average citizen to recognize and understand its implications. Kevin Bales, one of the leading experts on modern-day slavery, argues that in order to promote societal change, we need to bring this issue to the surface and create a sense of urgency. This will involve looking at the hard face of slavery, understanding the hidden victims, and evaluating the severity of this human rights abuse. By doing so, we can begin to understand the necessity of its abolition and what this will involve. Bales’ arguments will be critiqued through examining the urgent need for an international definition of slavery, along with the overlooked problem of human trafficking. This will culminate in an analysis of what it will take to create a societal and legal abolition of slavery.

This essay is concerned with one of the slowest wars ever waged, the centuries-old fight to rid the world of slavery.

2. Understanding Modern Day Slavery

The situation is urgent. It is not accidental that slavery continues to thrive, it is inevitable. It is the underperformance of existing policies that is allowing so many to fall victim to this exploitative situation. Minimum wage laws, health and safety laws, and immigration laws are simply not enforced to any consequential level. Many countries do not even have a minimum wage or they have it set so low the black market industry in exploiting trafficked workers is an inviting option for employers. Whether immigrants are legal or illegal in a country, they are often too frightened of the authorities to stand up for their rights and conditions, and they are easy to exploit to extremes unseen in any other section of the workforce.

An exception to this is the case of some of the recent and economically weaker member states of the European Union who have legally immigrated workers facing conditions not entirely dissimilar to trafficked workers, but that is a separate issue. The recent UK case of the 23 Chinese cockle pickers who died in Morecambe Bay in 2004 is an example of highly dangerous work that no native worker would accept, and the minimum wage laws and laws on maximum working hours were certainly not enforced in this case. The employers were using the gangmasters and small-time middlemen that are often so prevalent in the industry of modern-day slavery; the use of these figures makes it easier for employers to claim ignorance or that they were not directly employing the workers who were victimized.

Abolition of this exploitative situation will go a long way to eradicating modern-day slavery. Harder-hitting and more reliably enforced laws are necessary in order to deter potential exploiters of cheap labor, and the ring-fencing of dangerous work with regulating agencies will ensure that it is no longer possible to turn a blind eye to violations of workers’ rights and safety. A further issue affecting workers in more developed states is the lack of legal grounds for migrant workers to seek justice and compensation for exploitation. In some cases, human trafficking victims have been deported with nothing to show for their suffering in terms of justice delivered to their oppressors and compensation for their losses. This is unacceptable.

A globalized economy has brought no shortage of work that migrant workers are more than capable of doing, but there is a need to ensure that it is work done on level legitimate terms with native workers and with no loss of human rights or dignity.

3. The Global Impact of Modern Day Slavery

Modern-day slavery has far-reaching effects on the global economy, politics, and environment. Low cost and high profitability are attractive characteristics of any form of slavery to an employer, and because of this, some of the items that we use in everyday life are produced by slave labor. Laws in many countries today do not adequately protect the human rights of those most vulnerable, and slavery has easily found a home among those left unprotected. At the basic level, a modern-day slave has the same purpose as a historical slave: to provide a service to an owner with minimal or no return of benefit to themselves. Although bonded labor is considered to be the most predominant form of slavery today, child labor and forced labor exploitation are also profound. This, in turn, leads to poverty for the slave and his family because they are systematically deprived of an education and a means to break out of the poverty cycle. The loss of human resources in the form of slave labor is a loss to global productivity and the skilled workforce, and the poverty that ensues for the slave and his community has contributed to global economic problems. An excellent example would be the debt bondage of several developing Asian countries whose debts to Western nations are, in part, a result of the money loaned to aid their now slave ancestors.

There is no continent on this globe that has not, at some point, experienced the effect of colonization and limits to freedom. In today’s era, globally entrenched negative stereotypes of racial, ethnic, and religious groups justify discrimination and exploitation of those thought to be ‘inferior’. It should come as no surprise that the populations that are enslaved in this modern day come from those exact demographic groups that have been historically marginalized. Although the Anti-Slavery Society reports that at least 27 million people are enslaved in the world today, exact numbers are impossible to obtain. To understand this modern variation of slavery and to calculate its severity, it is the “variable” that identifies the changing levels of security and freedom. In essence, it is the ability to walk away. The existence of modern-day slaves has a clear correlation with the population areas of those who are discriminated against and can be found most frequently in the third world and developing world countries. Many of the slaves in these countries are trafficked internationally from areas of poverty to destinations of lesser poverty.

4. Combating Modern Day Slavery: Strategies and Initiatives

Strengthening the legal framework At the national level, one essential strategy is to strengthen the legal and criminal justice framework to provide a more effective deterrent and punishment to slaveholders. This can take a number of forms, including introducing and enforcing anti-slavery legislation through provision of resources for specialist anti-slavery police units, prosecutors, and judges, or developing and using new legal mechanisms such as freezing and confiscation of assets and civil recovery orders. This strategy should be complemented by efforts to improve access to justice for slavery survivors.

There are many ways in which modern slavery and human trafficking can be addressed. However, it is naive to think that any one measure alone can tackle the vast and diverse manifestations of slavery. Contemporary forms of slavery are deeply entrenched in global and national economies. To affect genuine and sustained change in the lives of the millions of people around the world who are currently enslaved, strategies for change must be comprehensive, long term, and address the economic, political, and cultural factors underpinning slavery.

5. Conclusion: A Call to Action

The Walk Free Foundation has exposed not only the shocking fact that slavery still exists, despite being against the law in virtually every country in the world, but that it is more widespread than ever. Importantly, this research also highlights that the success in eradicating slavery in the developed world has not been matched with equal success in developing countries, where coercion is still a common means of securing employment. This demonstrates that slavery remains a fundamental human rights issue, only the location has changed. Furthermore, the fact that the production of many goods and services consumed in the West, from mobile phones to raw materials, involves coercion and bonded labour means that even those who feel a world without slavery is none of their concern are, in fact, fuelling the problem. Globalisation has unquestionably contributed to the difficulties in eradicating modern-day slavery, and it has led to a shift of the problem from the developed to the developing world, but it has also provided tools and levers to act against it. It is clear that global awareness and action needs to address the prevalence of slavery in developing countries and the transparency of global supply chains, to change those from means of easy exploitation to instruments of liberation. This research creates a compass with which the world can aim to completely eradicate the scourge of modern-day slavery. It is alarming that nearly 36 million people are enslaved today, but there is reason to believe that society can push back against the trait that devalues and diminishes human life. This research provides data which forms an inarguable platform for informed and considered action against slavery in order to effect change. There are myriad ways in which this can be done by governments, business, and individuals, and with slavery more prevalent in every region of the world than the transatlantic slave trade, there is no excuse for inaction. Whether it be more rigorous implementation of anti-slavery laws, cleaning up supply chains, boosting access to education and employment in developing countries, or individuals holding corporations and governments accountable, the end of slavery is an attainable goal.