Left: Child slaves in Bangladesh often work in hazardous conditions in factories. Middle: Thousands of kids in Uzbekistan are forced to pick cotton. Right: Many child slaves work in the fishing industry on Lake Volta in Ghana.

Zakir Hossain Chowdhury/NurPhoto via Getty Images (Bangladesh); Thomas Grabka/laif/Redux (Uzbekistan); Tugela Ridley/EPA/REX/Shutterstock (Ghana)

Modern-Day Slavery

Tens of millions of people around the world, including children, are forced to work as slaves. What can be done to help them?

Courtesy of Mabel

Mabel was rescued from slavery when she was 15.

In many ways, Mabel is a typical teen. She goes to school, hangs out with her friends, and daydreams about her future. But for years, Mabel’s life was anything but ordinary.

When Mabel was just a young girl, her mother passed away, and she was sent to live with her grandparents in a poor village in the West African nation of Ghana. Unable to afford to take care of her, they sent her to work in the fishing industry on Lake Volta, one of the world’s largest man-made lakes

There, Mabel was held captive as a slave, forced to work up to 17 hours straight with little food and no pay. During the day, she would fold fishing nets on the lake, where strong winds constantly threatened to capsize the wooden boatsand drown everyone on board. At night, she had to make dinner for the other workers

I hardly slept at all,” Mabel told reporters years later. “Every evening, I hoped that there would be a storm, so I wouldn’t have to go out on the lake.”

Since then, Mabel’s life has dramatically improved. When she was 15, aid workers raided the lake and brought her to safety. She was able to attend school for the first time and now dreams of becoming a nurse.

It may sound hard to believe, but Mabel’s story is similar to those of millions of people worldwide. According to the Global Slavery Index, more than 40 million people are trapped in modern-day slavery, including 5.5 million children. Like Mabel, many of them are from poor communities in Africa or East Asia, where poverty, corruption, crime, and discrimination make them vulnerable to human traffickers

People tend to think of slavery as a historical problem,” says Katharine Bryant of the Walk Free Foundation, an antislavery organization. “But millions of people are still being exploited.”

Now new initiatives, including one driven by kids, are calling attention to the crisis. The efforts involve pressuring lawmakers around the world to enforce antislavery laws, encouraging companies to ensure that forced laborers aren’t working in their supply chains, and raising awareness about the issue.

Modern slavery is a hidden crime,” says Bryant. “So it’s very important that we talk about it.”

History of Slavery

Slavery is as old as civilization itself. It existed in the earliest societies in Mesopotamia in 6800 B.C., where slaves helped build the world’s first cities. In the Roman Empire, prisoners of war and people who couldn’t pay their debts were sold into slavery. Some of them were forced to fight to the death as gladiators in the Colosseum, starting in the year 80.

Beginning in 1525, more than 12 million Africans and their descendants were forced into slavery in the Americas. Many had been kidnapped, shipped across the Atlantic Ocean, and sold at public auctions to the highest bidder. Generations of slaves often worked on cotton plantations in the South, where many suffered regular beatings

In December 1865, passage of the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States. At the time, about 4 million people were enslaved13 percent of the country’s population.

A Global Problem

Today, slavery is illegal in almost every country. Yet it continues to exist all over the world, including in the U.S. According to some estimates, 58,000 people are enslaved throughout the nation. Many of them are domestic workers, including housekeepers.  

The exact number of slaves in each country is unclear because human traffickers operate in the shadows. But the majority of the world’s slavesnearly 60 percentare thought to be in just five countries: India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Uzbekistan (see map, below)

In those nations, hundreds of millions of people live in poor communities without economic opportunities or access to proper schooling. That makes them easy prey for human traffickers, who lure them into slavery with false promises of a good job and a better life

Sometimes, parents are tricked into selling their own kids. Traffickers often promise that the children will get an education and earn money to send back home. But once the kids have left their villages, they’re put to work in factories, mines, homes, fields, restaurants, and hotels. They aren’t allowed to go to school, see their families, or play outside

Like child laborers, child slaves work in hazardous conditions for hours on end. But one distinction, says Bryant, is that slaves areownedby their captorsand can’t return home.

In Southeast Asia, for example, kids as young as 7 are forced to weave rugs in dark rooms with no fresh air. In West Africa, they get up at 6 in the morning to harvest cocoa beans in the scorching heat. In Latin America, they work on farms where they’re exposed to toxic chemicals, picking crops until their fingers bleed

We were confined in one room and made to work for a period of 12 hours,” says Ravi, a former child slave at a carpet factory in India. “I would think of running away. But the thought of running away would always be followed with the fear of getting caught.”

Adek Berry/AFP/Getty Images

Many packaged goods contain palm oil processed by slaves in Indonesia.

Wiping Out Child Slavery

Antislavery advocates say that ending forced labor will require a global effort. That’s because modern-day slavery is driven in part by a worldwide demand for cheap labor, which allows companies to produce inexpensive goods. Those productsclothes, sneakers, and electronics, for exampleare then sold throughout the world, including in the U.S. (see "Made by Slaves," below).

But experts say that some progress has been made. In recent years, governments, humanitarian groups, and other organizations have increased funding to help end slavery worldwide. Many countries have also strengthened antislavery laws and increased penalties for human traffickers.

In addition, several companies have pledged to end the use of slave labor in the making of their products. Mars, Ferrero, and other chocolate manufacturers recently promised to eliminate slavery on farms that supply their cocoa by 2020. And in recent years, more than 250 retailersincluding Gap, H&M, and American Eaglehave agreed not to buy cotton harvested by child slaves in Uzbekistan.

Kids Working for Change

Millions of kids around the world have begun to do their part as well. The 100 Million campaign, a global youth-driven effort to end abuses against children, was recently launched in Washington, D.C. It aims to mobilize 100 million young people worldwide to fight on behalf of the millions of exploited kids around the globe, including those trapped in slavery. The five-year campaign has kicked off in India, Bangladesh, and Brazil, and will soon begin in dozens of other countries. (See "You Can Help!," below, for how you can join the campaign.)

Kailash Satyarthi, the children’s rights activist whose organization is behind the effort, says it’s important that young people educate themselves about the problems facing kids around the world and spread the word.

Building global awareness around how children are exploited is the single most effective way to prevent them from being exploited in the first place,” he says.

Bryant, too, says education is key. “As consumers, we have a responsibility to think about the products we’re buying and how they were made.”

CORE QUESTION: What are some of the keys to ending modern-day slavery? Explain.

Made by Slaves

Many of the items you use every day are produced by slaves.

Clothes
Every year, the government of Uzbekistan forces kids as young as 10 to pick cotton, which is used to make clothes.

Electronics
Many of the materials in phones and other electronics are mined by slaves in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Household Items
About half of all packaged goods in U.S. supermarketsincluding shampoo, soap, and breadcontain palm oil, which is processed by slaves in Malaysia, Indonesia, and other countries.

You Can Help!

Demand Change
Conduct research online to find out whether the companies you support use slave labor at any point in their supply chains. If they do, contact them via social media and urge them to do their part to help end the crisis.

Raise Awareness
Let people know that millions of kids worldwide are trapped in modern-day slavery. Spread the word online with the hashtag #100million

Show Your Support 
Donate to an aid organization that’s working to combat child slavery, such as Freedom United, Amnesty International, or Free the Slaves.

Slavery Around the World

The 10 countries with the most slaves are numbered.

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

MAP SKILLS

1. How many people are enslaved in Indonesia?

2. That country has coastline along which oceans?

3. How many more people are enslaved in China than in Russia?

4. Which African country has the most slaves?

5. Which landlocked country has the most slaves?

6. Most of the world’s slaves are on which continent?

7. Which labeled country borders China to the east and Russia to the south?

8. How many people are enslaved there?

9. The equator runs through which countries with more than 500,000 slaves?

10. Which is greater: the number of slaves in India or the number of slaves in all the other top 10 countries combined

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