Question: Does slavery still exist?

Slavery in the 21st century








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Contemporary slavery, also known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to institutional slavery that continues to exist in present day society. Estimates of the number of slaves today range from around 21 million.[1] to 70 million, depending on method used to estimate and the definition of slavery being used.[2][3]
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 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".[4]
According to American professor Kevin Bales, co-founder and former president of Free the Slaves, modern slavery occurs "when a person is under control of another person, who applies violence and force to maintain that control, and the goal of that control is exploitation".[5] According to this definition, research from the Walk Free Foundation based on its Global Slavery Index 2016 estimated that there were about 70 million slaves around the world in 2016, with 58% of them living in the top five countries—India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan.[5]  Of these 45.8 million, it is estimated that around 10 million of these contemporary slaves are children.[6] 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 estimate based on secondary sources, such as UN investigations, newspaper articles, government reports, and figures from NGOs.[5]
Causes
In slave labor, the slave-owner only needs to pay for sustenance and enforcement. This is sometimes lower than the wage-cost of free laborers, as free workers earn more than sustenance; in these cases, slaves have a positive price. When the cost of sustenance and enforcement exceeds the wage rate, slave-owning would no longer be profitable, and owners would simply release their slaves. Slaves are thus a more attractive investment in high-wage environments, and environments where enforcement is cheap, and less attractive in environments where the wage-rate is low and enforcement is expensive.[7]
Free workers also earn compensating differentials, whereby they are paid more for doing unpleasant work. Neither sustenance nor enforcement costs rise with the unpleasantness of the work, however, so slaves' costs do not rise by the same amount. As such, slaves are more attractive for unpleasant work, and less for pleasant work. Because the unpleasantness of the work is not internalised, being borne by the slave rather than the owner, it is a negative externality and leads to over-use of slaves in these situations.[7] Slaves can also be forced to do illegal work such as picking pockets or cannabis production.[8]
Modern slavery can be quite profitable[9] 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 2004 to range from US $5 billion to US $9 billion,[10] though profits are substantially lower. American slaves in 1809 were sold for around the equivalent of US$40,000 in today's money.[11] Today, a slave can be bought for $90.[11] The conscription of child soldiers by some governments is often viewed as a form of government-endorsed slavery.
Modern slavery is often seen as a by-product of poverty. Countries that lack education, economic freedom, the rule of law, and have poor societal structure can create an environment that fosters the acceptance and propagation of slavery.
Professor Remington Crawford III of the University of Toronto said:
Slavery is something that's with us always. We need to keep it in view and think about it when we buy our clothes, to question where they are sourced. Governments and CEOs need to think more carefully about what they are doing and what they are inadvertently supporting.[12]

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 from either 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.
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.[13]
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.[14]
Debt bondage can also be passed down to descendants, like chattel slavery. See the section on debt bondage below for more information on that. Sex slaves in the modern world are often effectively chattel, especially when they are forced into prostitution. Once again, see the section on sexual slavery below for more information.
Government-forced labour and conscription

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.[15] The value of all the labour done by North Koreans for the government is estimated at $975 million USD, 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.[16] Additionally, North Korea's army of 1.2 million soldiers is often made to work on construction projects unrelated to defense.[16]
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 labour.[17]
About 35-40 countries are currently enforcing military conscription of some sort, even if it's only temporary service.
Prison labour

In China's system of labour prisons (formerly called laogai), millions of prisoners have been subject to forced, unpaid labour. The laogai system is estimated to currently house between 500,000 and 2 million prisoners,[18] And to have caused tens of millions of deaths.[19] In parallel with laogai, China operated the smaller Re-education through labor system of prisons up until 2013.[20] In addition to both of these, It has been alleged that China is also operating forced labour camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning hundreds of thousands (possibly as many as a million) of muslims, uyghurs and other ethnic minorities and political dissidents.[21]
At first China denied this, claiming there was no suppression of ethnic minorities, no arbitrary detention or re-education centers in Xinjiang.[22] About a month later, China went back on this, with the Xinjiang government formally legalising the prisons.[23]
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",[24] providing a legal basis for slavery to continue in the country.[25] 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.[26] In other states, as of 2011, prisoners were paid between $0.23 and $1.15 per hour.[27] Federal Prison Industries paid innmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017.[25] In many cases the penal work is forced, with prisoners being punished by solitary confinement if they refuse to work.[28][29] From 2010 to 2015[30] and again in 2016[31] and 2018,[32] some prisoners in the US refused to work, protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced labour. Strike leaders are currently punished with indefinite solitary confinement.[33][34] Forced prison labour occurs in both public/government-run prisons and private prisons. The prison labour industry makes over $1 billion USD per year selling products that inmates make, while inmates are paid very little or nothing in return.[25] 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.[35]
In North Korea, tens of thousands of prisoners may be held in forced labour camps. Prisoners suffer harsh conditions and have been forced to dig their own graves[36] and to throw rocks at the dead body of another prisoner.[37] At Yodok Concentration Camp, children and political prisoners were subject to forced labour.[37] Yodok closed in 2014 and its prisoners were transferred to other prisons.[38]
Bonded labor


Millions of people today work as bonded laborers. 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. This form of slavery is prevalent in South Asia. 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, their helplessness is reinforced due to the large power differential between the "creditor" and the "debtor".
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.[39] Undocumented immigrants may also be taken advantage of; without legal residency, they often have no recourse to the law. 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 labour and human trafficking.[40] In 2017, the UAE passed a law to protect the rights of domestic workers.[41]
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.[42][43]
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 22% of slaves to date are active in the sex industry.[44]
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).[45]
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. Reported cases are the tip of an iceberg.[46]
In the United States over 200,000 minors were legally married from 2002-2017, with the youngest being only 10 years old. Most were married to adults.[47] 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.[48] [49] In 2017-2018, several states began passing laws to either restrict child marriage[50][51][52] or ban it altogether.[53]
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.[44] 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.
Fishing industry

One of world's largest seafood exporters, Thailand's fishing industry is rife with trafficking and abuse.[54] Many reports since 2000 have documented the forced labour of trafficked workers in the Thai fishing industry. Thousands of migrants from neighboring Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar etc. and locals mainly from rural areas have been forced to work on fishing boats with no contract or stable wages.[55] 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.[56]
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 labour.[57]
Cannabis farming - Teenagers are trafficked from Vietnam to work in illegal cannabis farms in Britain.[42]
Car washing by hand[57]
Domestic servitude, sometimes with sexual exploitation.[57]
Nail bars (cosmetic). Many people are trafficked from Vietnam to the UK for this work.[57]
Fishing, mainly associated with Thailand's sea food industry.[58][59]
Manufacturing - Many prisoners in the US are forced to manufacture products as diverse as mattresses, spectacles, underwear, road signs and body armour.[60]
Agriculture and Forestry - Prisoners in the United States and China are often forced to do farming and forestry work. See prison farm.
In North Korea, dulgyeokdae (youth workers) are often forced to work in construction and inminban (women workers) are forced to work in clothing sweatshops.[16]
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.[57]
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.[61]
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."[62] 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.[11]
Governmental efforts against slavery
The government 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.[63]
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. [64] 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.[65]
English and Welsh police have been accused of doing too little,[66] and of not handling victims in ways that encourage them to explain what has happened.[67] There are also legal difficulties in defining crimes and prosecuting perpetrators.[68]
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.[63]
Statistics

Modern slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with estimates of up to $35 billion generated annually. In 2013 the United Nations estimated that roughly 27 to 30 million individuals are currently caught in the slave trade industry.[69] According to Walk Free Foundation, there were 46 million people worldwide enslaved in 2016 in the form of "human trafficking, forced labor, bondage from indebtedness, forced or servile marriage or commercial sexual exploitation", with an estimated 18 million of those in India.[63] China is second with 3.4 million, followed by Pakistan (2.1 million), Bangladesh (1.5 million), and Uzbekistan (1.2 million). By percentages of the population living in slavery Uzbekistan tops with 4% of its population living under slavery followed by Cambodia (1.6%), India (1.4%) and Qatar (1.4%).[3] Although these figures have also faced criticism for its inconsistency and questionable methodology.[70][71]
4.3% of the population of Mauritania still remains enslaved.[72] Despite being illegal in every nation, slavery is still present in several forms today.
Slavery also exists in advanced democratic nations, for example the UK where Home Office estimates suggested 10,000 to 13,000 victims in December 2015. This includes, forced work of various kinds, such as forced prostitution.[73] The UK has recently made an attempt to combat modern slavery via the Modern Slavery Act 2015. Large commercial organisations are now required to publish a slavery and human trafficking statement in regard to their supply chains for each financial year. 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."[74]
Wage labor

The labor market, as institutionalised under the capitalist economic system, has been criticized[75] as a modern extension of slavery, especially by both left-wing socialists and anarcho-syndicalists,[76][77][78][79] who utilize the term wage slavery[80][81] as a pejorative for wage labour. Socialists draw parallels between the trade of labour as a commodity and slavery. Cicero is also known to have suggested such parallels.[82]
For Marxists, labour-as-commodity, which is how they regard wage labour,[83] provides an absolutely fundamental point of attack against capitalism.[84] "It can be persuasively argued," noted one concerned philosopher, "that the conception of the worker's labour as a commodity confirms Marx's stigmatization of the wage system of private capitalism as 'wage-slavery;' that is, as an instrument of the capitalist's for reducing the worker's condition to that of a slave, if not below it."[85]
As per anthropologist David Graeber, the earliest wage labour contracts we know about were in fact contracts for the rental of chattel slaves (usually the owner would receive a share of the money, and the slave, another, with which to maintain his or her living expenses.) Such arrangements, according to Graeber, were quite common in New World slavery as well, whether in the United States or Brazil. C. L. R. James argued that most of the techniques of human organisation employed on factory workers during the industrial revolution were first developed on slave plantations.[86]
Some criticize wage slavery on strictly contractual grounds, e.g. David Ellerman and Carole Pateman, arguing that the employment contract is a legal fiction in that it treats human beings juridically as mere tools or inputs by abdicating responsibility and self-determination, which the critics argue are inalienable. As Ellerman points out, "[t]he employee is legally transformed from being a co-responsible partner to being only an input supplier sharing no legal responsibility for either the input liabilities [costs] or the produced outputs [revenue, profits] of the employer's business."[87] Such contracts are inherently invalid "since the person remain[s] a de facto fully capacitated adult person with only the contractual role of a non-person" as it is impossible to physically transfer self-determination.[88] As Pateman argues:
The contractarian argument is unassailable all the time it is accepted that abilities can 'acquire' an external relation to an individual, and can be treated as if they were property. To treat abilities in this manner is also implicitly to accept that the 'exchange' between employer and worker is like any other exchange of material property ... The answer to the question of how property in the person can be contracted out is that no such procedure is possible. Labour power, capacities or services, cannot be separated from the person of the worker like pieces of property.[89]

It should, however, be noted that the trade of labor for wages is fundamentally different from slavery in that the trade occurs by consent of both parties, the employee being able to refuse to take employment or, having taken employment, to quit.  It is also different in that it grants the employer no authority to starve, torture, physically punish, or sell the employee or members of the employee's family, but only to refuse to continue the trade by firing the employee.
See also
Child slavery
Global Slavery Index
Modern Slavery Act 2015 (UK)
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery
Wage slavery
Walk Free Foundation




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 European Commission
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