Slavery has been in practice since Antiquity, but since its abolition in the 19th century, it has continued to redevelop and take many new and different forms. One area of study involves taking into account the role modern slavery plays in the global economy.
Bales Kevin is one of the most important scholars working on the subject, focusing on the Global economic and “secret” aspects of the modern implementation of slavery in America, Africa and (to a lesser extent) Latin America and Europe. In his influential work Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy, Bales analyses human trafficking within the context of global capitalism. Unfortunately, his work doesn’t go far enough in acknowledging the minor differences between the trafficked individual and the overwhelmingly underpaid laborer. Failing to take into account the role-indentured servitude plays in the modern slave trade by many scholars has created a gap, which led to lax restrictions on child laborers (working on Cocoa plantations in Ivory Coast for example) and most recently, the world discovering that human trafficking is still going on in Libya today.
The purpose of my research is to convey the extent to which slavery is still present
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Kara primarily focuses on sex trafficking, and shows how the term leads to confusions since policy makers only take into account “movement” and not “exploitation” (p.4). She explicitly agrees with the fact that “trafficking is not about movement it’s about slavery” (p.4) but she however fails to acknowledge how some girls in this situation gave their consent, knowing the implications, to make ends meet. To fill in this gap, M. G. Grant wrote an interesting book about “the work of sex work” and her analysis complete S. Kara’s, offering another viewpoint on how women get influenced and are “stuck” in their positions not knowing that they could actually be rescued, motivated by the same outcomes echoed in K. Bales analysis: fear and