December 2nd is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.  Most likely, you weren’t aware of this designation.

The United Nations established the day in 1949 to recognize ongoing efforts to abolish all forms of slavery throughout the world.  While those efforts are undoubtedly worthwhile, the inescapable reality is that are more people living as slaves today than at any time in history. Most of the estimated 27 million victims are women and children.

Why the disconnect?  Why are there so many slaves in the world when virtually every nation on earth has condemned and outlawed slavery?

Experts offer up several explanations:

• Of the estimated 27 million people caught up in some form of slavery, the vast majority (perhaps as many as 20 million) are Indians who work as “bonded laborers.”  This system, although illegal throughout India, is widely practiced. Most bonded workers spend their lives working to pay off debts that were incurred generations ago, according to a report by Human Rights Watch published in 1999. These people work under slave-like conditions hauling rocks, or working in fields or factories for less than a dollar a day.
• Human labor has become commoditized in the global economic market.  With a plentiful supply of cheap labor throughout the world, individual human beings are increasingly treated as “disposable people” (in the memorable phrase coined by anti-slavery activist Kevin Bales), to be used — and replaced — at will. To make matters worse, criminal elements control a significant part of the slavery business, buying, selling and transporting victims in illegal networks that span national borders.
• Enforcement of existing anti-slavery laws is erratic and uneven, even in advanced Western nations.  In some areas, police and law enforcement officials are actively involved in the slave trade; even when cops are honest, they may not have sufficient training or experience to recognize instances of modern-day slavery.
• Perhaps most challenging of all is the widely-held perception that slavery is an historical fact, not a present-day reality.  Many visitors to the Freedom Center, for example, often voice surprise that slavery did not end with the passage of the 13th Amendment at the end of the American Civil War.  Besides, the face of slavery in the modern-world is to a large extent hidden from view.  The enslaved in the 21st Century are made up of people of diverse backgrounds, ethnic identities and income levels. As a result, slavery can exist unnoticed even in advanced post-industrial societies like the United States, Britain and Japan.

The situation is not entirely grim.  Awareness of the existence of slavery is growing, albeit slowly, through the work of modern abolitionist groups and institutions like the Freedom Center.  Headline events, such as the use of child soldiers in ongoing civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, help focus the world’s attention on especially egregious violations of essential human rights.  Lastly, the cause of modern abolition appears to have captured the attention — and involvement — of young people the world over.

Slavery is not likely ever to be completely eradicated.  It has plagued humanity from the earliest times, and will exist as long as humans seek to exploit or dominate one another.  But as long as people desire to live and breathe free, the effort to eliminate this scourge of the human spirit will not cease.

That’s the hope, at least, as this year’s December 2 UN Slavery Aboltion Day comes and goes.

Join the discussion . . . we’re looking for ideas about how you think modern forms of slavery can be successfully eliminated.