A feature of the new slavery is that slaves become disposable once the slaveholder has used them. Although officially illegal in every country, a new form of slavery is arising because of globalisation, Bales explains. Areas where centuries of slave or slave-like traditions have existed are evolving into new forms. Support structures such as family relationships and state welfare break down.
Common lands become concentrated into the hands of an increasingly wealthy elite.
Cash crops for export replace subsistence farming. Indeed, for the slaveholders, not having legal ownership is an improvement because they get total control without any responsibility for what they own. This was an incentive to keep a slave alive. It is not profitable to keep them if they are not immediately useful or become ill. Mauretania Bales visited and researched a number of countries to find out firsthand what it means to be a slave.