Modern Slavery

Modern Slavery

There are more than 30 million slaves including; men, women, and children. These individuals are being forced into labor and having to live in a constant feeling of despair. Modern slavery is an awful crime. It affects the United States in ways that are almost incomprehensible. Sadly it is still going on around the world today. Modern Slavery has affected the United States in many different forms including forced labor, bonded labor, and child labor.

Forced labor is any work or service performed against a person's will under the threat of punishment. "Almost 21 million people are victims of forced labor, 11.4 million women and girls and 9.5 million men and boys" (Forced Labour). A common type of forced labor is sex trafficking. Sex trafficking in the United States is defined as sex acts by force, fraud, or coercion. Minors as young as 12 years of age are forced into prostitution in the United States. "Women and young girls are sold, locked up in rooms or brothels for weeks or months and are drugged, terrorized, and gang raped over and over again" (Walker-Rodriguez). Sex traffickers target vulnerable people with history of abuse and use of violence such as threats, lies, false promises, debt bondage, and other forms of control to keep them involved (Sex Trafficking in the U.S.).

Bonded labor also known as debt bondage is when his or her labor is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little pay or no pay. The value of their work becomes invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed. Often those debts are passed on to next generations (Bonded Labor).The practice has been long prohibited under U.S. law by its spanish name, peonage, and the Palermo Protocol calls for its criminalization as a form or trafficking in a person (What is Modern Slavery). The burden of illegal costs and debts on these laborers can contribute to a situation of debt bondage.This often worsens when the worker's status in the country is tied to the employer in the context of employment-based temporary work programs and there is no effective redress for abuse (What is Modern Slavery). Millions of people are held in bonded labor around the world.

Child labor is the use of children in industry or business, often when illegal or considered inhumane. Children were often preferred as industrialization moved workers from farms and workshops into factory work. This is because factory owners viewed them as more manageable, cheaper and less likely to strike (Child Labor). In the early decades of the 20th century, child labor began to decline as the labor and reform movements grew and labor improved. The improvement of labor increased the political power of working people and social reformers to demand legislation regulating child labor. The National Child Labor Committee was generated in 1904 and worked to end child labor through anti-sweatshop