“Slavery is a booming business and the number of slaves is increasing.  People get rich by using slaves.  And then when they are finished with their slaves they just throw them away.  This is the new slavery, which focuses on big profits and cheap lives.  It is not about owning people in the tradition sense of old slavery, but about controlling them completely.  People become disposable tools for making money.”

Contemporary slavery does not differ vastly from past slavery, but there have been changes in the world’s economy and societies over the past 50 years that have enabled a resurgence of slavery. In fact contemporary slavery has expanded into new forms and also includes new people of varying ages, sex and race.

There are more slaves in the world today than all the people stolen from Africa over the time of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. They are still used for cheap labour to produce luxuries and usually are illegally obtained and forced to work under threat of violence. There are still sex slaves but in greater quantities.

Another contemporary form of slavery is bonded labour, where people are tricked into taking a loan and then forced to work an excess of time to pay back small debts. Although it is an old practice in many cultures, now days the practice of early and forced marriages are considered slavery.

There are those who become slaves by descent because they are born as slaves because either they are from a ‘slave class’ or from a ‘group’ that society views as suitable for being used as slave labour. The worst form of this is child labour, where are there 126 million children affected. There are still child soldiers used by militia in wars that do not affect them. Modern slaves are still misused and abused.

The methods of procuring the slaves has also adapted to modern circumstances. People are still kidnapped and trafficked, which involves the transport and/or trade of people from one area to another for the purpose of forcing them into slavery conditions.

Globalization, modern technology, fading national borders and the ever increasing gap between rich and poor provide ample opportunities for people to find ways new of exploiting other people. There are between 12 million to 27 million slaves in the world today. 

In the past it was legal to own slaves until the abolitionists successfully fought this. But slavery exists today despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practiced. It is also prohibited by the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery.

Yet, numerous products bought and sold in Britain today have been made, at some point in their production, with the use of slavery, whether it be Coco from the Ivory Coast in our chocolate or rugs made in India. The cheaper labour produces bigger profits for the Multinational Corporations and lower prices for customers. But the price is sweated labour because no paid worker, however, efficient, can compete economically with unpaid worker-slaves.