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Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
-Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. - Clarence Darrow

The UN's International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that there are over 27 million enslaved persons worldwide; more than double the number of those deported to the Americas in the 400-year history of the transatlantic slave trade. Modern slavery, not to be confused with the practices of sweatshop or low-wage labor, is generally broken-down into three categories: Bonded Labor, Child Labor, and Trafficking. As is the case with many development and conflict issues, women and girls constitute the majority of the victims of modern slavery.

Slaves today are taken from almost every continent and are sold in just about every country in the world. Trafficking alone, though affecting less people than bonded or child labor (according to UNICEF, 1.2 million children are trafficked each year), is one the most profitable and fastest growing criminal enterprises in the world, falling behind the drugs trade and running neck-and-neck with the trade in small arms.

In other cases, slaves are viewed more as weapons than commodities. Of the 8.4 million enslaved children between five and seventeen years old, over 300,000 (a number roughly equivalent to the population of Canberra, Australia) are child soldiers exploited in armed conflicts in more than thirty countries. (Over the last decade, around two million children have died as a result of armed conflict). In addition to number of child slaves, the ILO estimates that over 111 million children under fifteen work in the worst forms of child labor in conditions so hazardous that they should be "immediately withdrawn from this work."

Bonded Labor, or debt bondage, with over 20 million people enslaved, is by far the most widely practiced form of slavery and occurs when someone is forced to work in repayment for a loan and is then trapped or deceived, often with members of their family, into working excessively for no pay and passing the debt down through generations.

Understanding modern slavery is difficult, as categories of slaves often overlap and lines drawn between a slave and someone working for little reward are often murky. Some United Nations agencies, such as the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, are mandated to help combat slavery and are supported by legal instruments that, unfortunately, have no teeth and little government support.

It is possible, through education, political advocacy, and courage, to raise awareness and prompt action to help put and end to slavery and many other global problems afflicting humanity. As a human being with free will and the power to change the world, we are obligated to take advantage of the great privilege and opportunity we have to relieve the burden of the world's most oppressed.

Learn more about this author, Aaron Dames.
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