Contemporary Slavery

Slavery is often considered the relic of the past that cannot exist in the modern times. The Civil War in the United States may be seen as a struggle against slavery that caused the international effect. However, slavery still exists and millions of people who are enslaved nowadays are the best evidence of it. Nonetheless, with the development of the social mind concerning the slavery issue, the concept of slavery also changed. One can imagine metaphorical kinds of slavery, but even nowadays, it is real. In opposition to the past time, nowadays, slavery is prohibited in all countries. Nevertheless, slavery is still a topical problem in many underdeveloped countries of Asia and Africa, at the same time, not only people of these countries can be slaves. It can also involve people from developed countries. Thus, slavery is still a problem for many regions of the world, even nowadays the situation has not improved, and bonded labor along with sex slavery are the key issues for international anti-slavery organizations.

In most underdeveloped countries where slavery is formally prohibited, but slave owners ignore the legislation. The nature of slavery is still the same; people still are tricked or involuntarily involved into forced labor activities and slave owners still buy and sell people ignoring international and local legislation. At the same time, the illegality of slavery draws criminal groups, which made slavery a successful and profitable business. The modern slavery is not as opened as it was earlier, although it did not stop its worldwide spread. Antislavery.org states that around 21 million of people are now enslaved. People still work against their will or because of threats of life or for miserable salary or without it at all.

There are several types of slavery nowadays such as bonded labor, trafficking, child slavery, forced labor and descent-based labor. Additionally, modern slavery may include forced marriages in the early age. Some kinds of slavery are caused by cultural traditions of a nation. It deprives some strata of society as children, women and some ethnical groups from their human and citizen rights. Basically, the minor ethnic groups always suffer in some countries with aggressive ethnic majorities.

One of the most spread kinds of slavery is bonded labor. It is widely spread in South Asia and Africa, and became a serious challenge for the developing democracies in this region. Kara illustrates it as "an exploitation by a few socially and economically powerful persons trading on the misery and suffering of large numbers of men". Slave owners treat their workers as property; they sell and buy them, turn over to other people, etc. People cannot avoid it and often have to work their entire life to repay the debt. Moreover, their children would likely continue to repay the debt, and it can occur for a very long time. Kara views several features of bonded labor such as low financial status, belonging to a minor ethnic group and lack of illiteracy.

Another spread form of slavery is sex slavery that involves women of all ages. Sex trafficking is also the most profitable kind of slavery. Sex traders sell women and girls to customers or brothels where they become prostitutes and sex slaves. Slavery is much tightened with trafficking. Far away from home and without identification documents, people become very vulnerable to trafficking. They are exposed to violence, coercion and deception that makes them an easy target for slave owners and traders. Basically, it is harder to find such people because they are not registered at a country and cannot appeal to authorities without documents. Additionally, often undocumented immigrants are the main reason of growing trafficking rates. Being eager to make money abroad, they often become victims to traffickers. Trafficking makes the problem of slavery to overcome the borders of underdeveloped countries because even citizens of well-developed countries can be deceived and captured by slave traders while visiting a country.

The problem of slavery is extremely actual and widespread in some countries. However, it does mean that it is not possible to solve it. Basically, the main reason why the slavery issue still exists is peoples ignorance. Some kinds of slavery, such as bonded labor exist only because of government non-interference. The concept of slavery occupies the social mind of the people in such countries as Pakistan, India, Mauritania and others, but the government waged no propaganda that should destroy this concept from the social mind. Governments do nothing to protect people from slave traders and owners and to stop trafficking. Being unprotected, people cannot appeal to authorities and ask for help. First of all, in order to stop slavery and eliminate it at all, people should become aware of this problem because many of them consider that slavery was abolished along with the Thirteenth Amendment. Secondly, governments should start to control all employees in all industries in order to prevent them from hiring slave workers. This policy control should include not only economical regulation of enterprises with questionable sources of income. Governments should create committees that would monitor such employees and inspect their manufacturing facilities. In order to stop child and sex slavery, governments should improve the operation of law-enforcement authorities and services that are responsible for it. Any government cannot tolerate sex slavery and child slavery.

Slavery cannot be abolished at once as soon as it is a long-time problem. For people who live in well-developed countries slavery may seem not a problem that must bother the international community, and it is one of the main reasons why slavery still exists. At the same time, this is also the reason why so many people are caught into slave traders traps. In order to solve this problem, all people should be aware of this problem and be eager to help to solve it. Finally, governments and law-enforcement authorities must consider such issue as slavery. Because without governments involvement such problems as bonded labor cannot be solved. Additionally, slavery is a very profitable business that is used by international criminal groups to make billiards of dollars annually; therefore, the attention of governments to the problem of slavery is immensely necessary. People often underestimate this problem, but for more than 20 million of slaves, this problem is life-decisive. It is impossible to ignore it when so many children become the victims of slave traders. Slavery ruins their life and destroys all hopes for the better future. Finally, slavery should not be a problem in the democratic society; that is why all efforts of the international community should be aimed at total elimination of slavery. The publicity must be aware of all problems of slavery in many countries of Asia and Africa.