Slavery in the 21st century
Contemporary slavery, also sometimes known as modern slavery or neo-slavery, refers to slavery that continues to exist in the 21st century. Estimates of the number of enslaved people range from around 38 million to 49.6 million, depending on the method used to form the estimate and the definition of slavery being used. The estimated number of enslaved people is debated, as there is no universally agreed definition of modern slavery; those in slavery are often difficult to identify, and adequate statistics are often not available.
The International Labour Organization estimates that, by their definitions, over 40 million people are in some form of slavery today. Some 24.9 million people are in forced labor, of whom 16 million people are exploited in the private sector such as domestic work, construction or agriculture, 4.8 million people in forced sexual exploitation, and 4 million people in forced labour imposed by state authorities. An additional 15.4 million people are in forced marriages.
Definition
The Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, an agency of the United States Department of State, says that modern slavery', 'trafficking in persons', and 'human trafficking' have been used as umbrella terms for the act of recruiting, harbouring, transporting, providing or obtaining a person for compelled labour or commercial sex acts through the use of force, fraud, or coercion". Besides these, a number of different terms are used in the US federal Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000 and the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children, including "involuntary servitude", "slavery" or "practices similar to slavery", "debt bondage", and "forced labor".According to American professor Kevin Bales, co-founder and former president of the non-governmental organization and advocacy group Free the Slaves, modern slavery occurs "when a person is under the control of another person who applies violence and force to maintain that control, and the goal of that control is exploitation". The impact of slavery is expanded when targeted at vulnerable groups such as children.
According to the Walk Free Foundation, "Modern slavery includes forced labour, forced or servile marriage, debt bondage, forced commercial sexual exploitation, human trafficking, slavery-like practices, and the sale and exploitation of children." With this definition as the basis of its research, Walk Free's Global Slavery Index in 2021 estimated that there were about 49.6 million slaves around the world.
Bales warned that, because slavery is officially abolished everywhere, the practice is illegal, and more hidden from the public and authorities. This makes it impossible to obtain exact figures from primary sources. The best that can be done is to estimate based on secondary sources, such as UN investigations, newspaper articles, government reports, and figures from NGOs.
Modern slavery persists for many of the same reasons older variations did: it is an economically beneficial practice for enslavers, despite the ethical concerns. The problem has been able to escalate in recent years due to the disposability of slaves and the fact that the cost of slaves has dropped significantly.
Causes
Since traditional slavery such as chattel slavery has been officially abolished in every country on Earth and is illegal, enslavement no longer revolves around legal ownership, but around illegal control. Two fundamental changes are the move away from the forward purchase of slave labor, and the existence of slaves as an employment category. While the statistics suggest that the 'market' for exploitative labor is booming, the notion that humans are purposefully sold and bought from an existing pool is outdated. While such transactions do still occur, in contemporary situations people become trapped in slavery-like conditions in various ways.Modern slavery is often seen as a by-product of poverty. In countries that lack education and effectively implemented rule of law, poor societal structure can create an environment that fosters the acceptance and propagation of slavery. Slavery is most prevalent in impoverished countries and those with vulnerable minority communities, though it also exists in developed countries. Tens of thousands toil in slave-like conditions in industries such as mining, farming, and factories, producing goods for domestic consumption or export to more prosperous nations.
In the older form of slavery, slave-owners spent more on getting slaves. It was more difficult for them to be disposed of. The cost of keeping them healthy was considered a better investment than getting another slave to replace them. In modern slavery people are easier to get at a lower price so replacing them when exploiters run into problems becomes easier. Slaves are then used in areas where they could easily be hidden while also creating a profit for the exploiter.
Modern slavery can be quite profitable, and some governing bodies tacitly allow it, despite being outlawed by international treaties such as the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery and local laws. Total annual revenues from human trafficking was estimated in 2014 to be over $150 billion dollars, although profits are substantially lower. American slaves in 1809 were sold for around the equivalent of US$40,000 in today's money. Today, a slave can be bought for $90–$100.
Bales explains, in the context of modern slavery, "This is an economic crime... People do not enslave others to be mean to them; they do it to make a profit."
Types
Slavery by descent and chattel slavery
Slavery by descent, also called chattel slavery, is the form most often associated with the word "slavery". In chattel slavery, the enslaved person is considered the personal property of someone else, and can usually be bought and sold. It stems historically either from conquest, where a conquered person is enslaved, as in the Roman Empire or Ottoman Empire, or from slave trading, as in the Saharan or Atlantic slave trades.Since the 2014 Civil War in Libya, and the subsequent breakdown of law and order, there have been reports of enslaved migrants being sold in public, including open slave markets in the country.
Mauritania has a long history with slavery. Chattel slavery was formally made illegal in the country but the laws against it have gone largely unenforced. It is estimated that around 90,000 people are slaves.
Debt bondage can also be passed down to descendants, like chattel slavery.
Those trapped in the system of sexual slavery in the modern world are often effectively chattel, especially when they are forced into prostitution.
Government-forced labor
Government-forced labor, also known as state-sponsored labor, is defined by the International Labor Organization as situations where people "are coerced to work through the use of violence or intimidation, or by more subtle means such as accumulated debt, retention of identity papers or threats of denunciation to immigration authorities".In Eritrea, an estimated 300,000 to 400,000 people are in an indefinite military service program which amounts to mass slavery, according to UN investigators. Their report also found sexual slavery and other forced labor.
In North Korea, the government forces many people to work for the state, both inside and outside North Korea itself, sometimes for many years. The 2018 Global Slavery Index estimated that 2.8 million people were slaves in the country. The value of all the labor done by North Koreans for the government is estimated at US$975 million, with dulgyeokdae forced to undertake dangerous construction work, and inminban forced to make clothing in sweatshops. The workers are often unpaid. Additionally, North Korea's army of 1.2 million conscripted soldiers is often made to work on construction projects unrelated to defense, including building private villas for the elite. The government has had as many as 100,000 workers abroad.
In Uzbekistan, for example, the government coerces students and state workers to harvest cotton, of which the country is a main exporter, every year, forcing them to abandon their other responsibilities in the process. In this example the use of students, including those in primary, secondary, and higher education, means that child labor is also prominent. Uzbekistan's government has worked to reduce the forced labor in recent years, and in March 2022 a major boycott of Uzbek cotton was lifted, upon reports that coerced labor had been almost eliminated.
Prison labor
In 1865, the United States ratified the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which banned slavery and involuntary servitude "except as punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted", providing a legal basis for slavery, now referred to as penal labor, to continue in the country. Historically, this led to the system of convict leasing which still primarily affects African-Americans. The Prison Policy Initiative, an American criminal justice think tank, cites the 2020 US prison population at being 2.3 million individuals, and nearly all able-bodied inmates work in some fashion.In Texas, Georgia, Alabama and Arkansas, prisoners are not paid at all for their work. In other states, prisoners are paid between $0.12 and $1.15 per hour. Federal Prison Industries paid inmates an average of $0.90 per hour in 2017. Inmates who refuse to work may be indefinitely remanded into solitary confinement, or have family visitation revoked. From 2010 to 2015 and again in 2016 and in 2018, some prisoners in the US refused to work, protesting for better pay, better conditions, and for the end of forced labor. Strike leaders were punished with indefinite solitary confinement.
Forced prison labor occurs in both public/government-run prisons and private prisons. CoreCivic and GEO Group constitute half of the market share of private prisons, and they made a combined revenue of $3.5 billion in 2015. The value of all the labor done by inmates in the United States is estimated to be in the billions. In California in 2018, 2,500 incarcerated workers fought wildfires for $1 per hour through the CDCR's Conservation Camp Program, which saved the state as much as $100 million a year.
In China's system of labor prisons, millions of prisoners have been subject to forced, unpaid labor. The laogai system is estimated to currently house between 500,000 and 2 million prisoners. In parallel with laogai, China operated the smaller re-education through labor system of prisons up until 2013. In addition to both of these, China is also reportedly operating forced labor camps in Xinjiang, imprisoning hundreds of thousands of Uyghurs, as well as a smaller number of Tibetans and political dissidents.
In the UK, there are three key types of prison labour. First, prisoners can be made to maintain the jail—for example cleaning, maintenance, or working in the kitchens. Second, prisoners have the option to do mundane/repetitive work for external companies; this includes tasks such as bagging nails and packing boxes. Finally, prisoners can work in specialist workshops run by third parties, in which the prisoners can do tasks such as building window-frames, graphic design and other tasks requiring some form of machinery. A 2013 report suggest prisoners in the UK can earn as little as £10 for a 40-hour week's worth of work.
In Australia, prison labour occurs in at least New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Some prisoners work for private companies. As of 2017, in NSW some are paid as little as $0.82 per hour, while in the NT some are paid as much as $16 per hour.