Key Drivers Of Slavery

Overview

When it comes to slavery, we wear it, we eat it, and we drive it. Despite not “buying into it,” we often unknowingly maintain it.

Some people say that slavery has been abolished around the world...and technically speaking they are correct in that there are no countries that have legalized, organized slave trades. However, debt bondage, sex trade, child soldiers, and involuntary domestic servitude are modern day methods for entrapping people into slave labor

Poverty, limited opportunities at home, lack of education, unstable social and political conditions, economic imbalances and war are some of the key drivers that contribute to trafficking of victims. What’s more victims can often face more than one type of abuse and slavery,

These people have nowhere else to go; if they do not show up for work the owners find them and punish them, they are made to work 15+ hours a day, 7 days a week with no breaks except food. Many are given only one piece of clothing and many are not allowed to wear real clothes at all. They are made to feel like they owe and thus they must do whatever is asked of them. Period. Some of the people we spoke to who were pulled into labor at a young age, did not even realize what was happening to them. They just did what they were told and believed whatever was told to them. If they were mistreated, they felt they deserved it. They focus on survival without the knowledge to help them get out of poverty and create a life for themselves and their families.

Without solving for the issue of poverty, helping people escape from one land or factory owner will be a temporary fix, as they will likely fall victim to exploitation due to the same fundamental issues of survival.

The Caste System

I remember hearing in school in India that the caste system no longer exists in India and that this was something of the past, but there is no issue with castes today. This does seem to be more accurate in the urban cities, but in the rural communities, the caste system is as alive as ever. Issues for the Dalit communties and for other tribal groups such as the Tadias.

First, some basic facts:

• The Hindu caste system was created more than

That quoted figure comes from the 2012 report issued by the United Nation’s International Labor Organization (ILO) that has been attempting to gather international data for over a decade now. In the Asia-Pacific region where most of the world’s forced laborers come from at 56%, an estimated 11.7 million people, followed by Africa at 18% or 3.7 million people live in bondage. Considering that at the peak of America’s slavery prior to the Civil War that ultimately declared it illegal, the total was four million people, fathoming that over five times that number are currently suffering in slavery here in the twenty-first century, casts some serious doubts on whether us humans are evolving as a species at