Modern Day Slavery

Modern Day Slavery

The human history confirms the foundation of many societies on the exploitation of the inferior through slave trade. Slave trade formed the very basis of trafficking in modern day. The Roman law codified by the Emperor Justinian provide clear evidence of the use of slave trade during the Fifth and the Sixth Centuries A.D. Under the Roman law, slaves were treated as private property and often used as maids, guards, cooks, partner in sex of prostitutes, etc. Towards the end of the Sixth Century slaveholders started emancipating their slaves and the slave trade declined. But, the Roman legacy of slave trading spread to various parts of Africa, North America, Middle East and Europe. The use of African slaves was common during

Once they are brought to their interim or final destinations, though, it is force, threat of force, or harm that keeps them prisoners and enslaved. It is at this point within the trafficking process that victims differ little from the seventeenth and eighteenth-century African slaves who were kidnapped, bought, and sold into slavery and servitude. Unlike traditional slaves of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, trafficking victims are often hidden in plain sight. They, too, however, are openly bought and sold, some in cattle markets or like foreign women sold in auctions to sex traffickers. Others are bought and sold through hidden means, such as through the internet, as models, escorts, and brides . Kevin Bales, a leading expert on slavery and human trafficking, defines human trafficking as "Trafficking in persons is one of the means by which people or organizations bring people into, and maintain them in, slavery and forced labor. Human trafficking is not a condition or result of a process, but the process of enslavement itself. " Human Trafficking violates political and civil rights which also includes the right to be free from slavery like practices and degrading and cruel treatment.

Slavery and Prostitution in

Therefore, it is important to trace the long recorded history of human slavery, prostitution and sale of women for sexual exploitation to see how far the practices in the past account for the position of women in present day society and reinforce toleration of assaults on the dignity of women by sexual violence and forced prostitution . Various prose, poetical and dramatical works and numerous erotic painting and sculptures refer to unrestrained sex practices since remote ages. There are passages in the Rig Veda which demonstrate its existence in the Vedic age. The Muslim conquest over India lead to large scale atrocities on women, which continued during the Mughal period.Women who were sexually assaulted by these invading rulers and other filthy men were forced to become prostitutes as they were not accepted in the Hindu society as women of right moral character. The traces of this thought process are still evident in our modern society. Prostitution was encouraged during the Mughal reign and tax was charged by the rulers from the people who wanted to avail the services of these prostitutes. During the late 16th and 17th Century, Goa which was a Portuguese stronghold, young Japanese women and girls were captured as sexual slaves. The British East India Company also set up comfort zones for their soldiers to satisfy their urges by making children and using women as sex tool in the 18th and early