On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London, United Kingdom apologized publicly for Britain's role in colonial slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery," he said pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Jesse Jackson praised Mayor Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made. Neither mentioned the role of the original Arab and Muslim captors of African slaves^[68].

Reparations

Main article: Reparations for slavery

Sporadically there have been movements to achieve reparations for those formerly held as slaves, or sometimes their descendants. Claims for reparations for being held in slavery are handled as a civil law matter in almost every country. This is often decried as a serious problem, since former slaves' relative lack of money means they often have limited access to a potentially expensive and futile legal process. Mandatory systems of fines and reparations paid to an as yet undetermined group of claimants from fines, paid by unspecified parties, and collected by authorities have been proposed by advocates to alleviate this "civil court problem". Since in almost all cases there are no living ex-slaves or living ex-slave owners these movements have gained little traction. In nearly all cases the judicial system has ruled that the statute of limitations on these possible claims has long since expired.

Nonetheless, from time to time misinformation is circulated (often through e-mail) to United States residents describing a $5000 "slavery tax credit", supposedly passed into law under President Bill Clinton's administration during the 1990s, but never announced to the public. No such credit exists, and persons attempting to promote or take advantage of the alleged credit are subject to prosecution. (See Slavery reparations scam for further information.) A similar scam involves a "tax credit" available to Native Americans.

Religion and slavery

Main article: Slavery and religion

Some argue that the Bible condones slavery in Ancient Israelite society by failing to condemn the widespread existing practice present in other cultures.^[69] It also explicitly states that under certain circumstances, slavery is morally acceptable.^[70][71] There are also scholars who argue that Islam condones slavery,^{[citation needed]} although the institution of slavery has largely been outlawed in the Muslim world.^{[citation needed]}

Contemporary slavery

Since 1945, debate about the link between economic growth and different relational forms (most notably unfree social relations of production in Third World agriculture) occupied many contributing to discussions in the development decade (the 1960s). This continued to be the case in the mode of production debate (mainly about agrarian transition in India) that spilled over into the 1970s, important aspects of which continue into the present (see the monograph by Brass, 1999, and the 600 page volume edited by Brass and van der Linden, 1997). Central to these discussions was the link between capitalist development and modern forms of unfree labour (peonage, debt bondage, indenture, chattel slavery). Within the domain of political economy it is a debate that has a very long historical lineage, and - accurately presented - never actually went away. Unlike advocacy groups, for which the number of the currently unfree is paramount, those political economists who participated in the earlier debates sought to establish who, precisely, was (or was not) to be included under the rubric of a worker whose subordination constituted a modern form of unfreedom. This element of definition was regarded as an epistemologically necessary precondition to any calculations of how many were to be categorized as relationally unfree.

Three types of slavery exist in contemporary society: wage slaves, contract slaves, and slaves in the traditional sense:

• Wage slavery occurs when a person is employed at a wage level which does not allow the worker an opportunity to leave their employer. Some groups, however, use the term more broadly to refer to a situation in which a person must sell his or her labour power, submitting to the authority of an employer in order to prosper or merely to subsist; creating a hierarchical social condition in which a person chooses a job but only within a coerced set of choices (e.g. work for a boss or starve) which usually excludes democratic worker's control of the workplace and the economy as a whole and unconditional access to a fair share of the basic necessities of life.

• Contract slavery occurs when people are tricked or compelled into signing contracts requiring them to work under conditions that amount to slavery.

• Slavery in the traditional sense still exists, though it now operates underground. Actual slavery still operates using much the same methods as in the past, with people (often women and children) being abducted or lured by work offers, transported to another country where they are "sold" - with the men and male children sold for labour, while the women and girls are sometimes destined for domestic work or to work in prostitution, primarily in Asia and the West.

A combination of wage and contract slavery is found in Sarawak mining towns among Indonesian Dayak immigrants. They are required to buy the tools they need to work with. However, as they often do not have the required money, they need to buy them on a loan. Then they discover that local food is so expensive that all their wages are spent on that, so they can't pay off the loan and are forced by law to keep working for no gain.

Though slavery was officially abolished in China in 1910,^[72] the practice continues unofficially in some regions.^[73][74]

Slavery also exists in other countries across the world. Groups such as the American Anti-Slavery Group, Anti-Slavery International, Free the Slaves, the Anti-Slavery Society, and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society continue to campaign to rid the world of slavery.

One example of the contemporary fight against slavery worldwide, is against that which is especially pervasive in agriculture, apparel and the sex industry.^{[citation needed]}

Current situation

Francis Bok, former Sudanese slave. It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War. The slaves are mostly Dinka people.^[75][76]

Although outlawed in nearly all countries, forms of slavery still exist in some parts of the world. ^[77][78] According to a broad definition of slavery used by Kevin Bales of Free the Slaves (FTS), an advocacy group linked with Anti-Slavery International, there were 27 million people (although some put the number as high as 200 million) who worked in virtual slavery in 2007, spread all over the world.^[79] According to FTS, these slaves represent the largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history and the smallest percentage of the total human population that has ever been enslaved at once.

FTS claims that present-day slaves have been sold for US$40, in Mali, for young adult male labourers, or as much as US$1,000 in Thailand for HIV-free, young females, suitable for work in brothels. The lower limit represents the lowest price that there has ever been for a slave: the price of a comparable male slave in 1850 in the United States would have been about US$25,800 in present-day terms^[80] (US$1,000 in 1850). That difference, even allowing for differences in purchasing power, is significant.^{[citation needed]} As a result of the lower price, the economic advantages of present-day slavery are clear.^{[clarification needed]}

Enslavement is also taking place in parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.^[81] The Middle East Quarterly reports that slavery is still endemic in Sudan.^[82] In June and July 2007, 570 people who had been enslaved by brick manufacturers in Shanxi and Henan were freed by the Chinese government.^[83] Among those rescued were 69 children.^[84] In response, the Chinese government assembled a force of 35,000 police to check northern Chinese brick kilns for slaves, sent dozens of kiln supervisors to prison, punished 95 officials in Shanxi province for dereliction of duty, and sentenced one kiln foreman to death for killing an enslaved worker.^[83]

In Mauritania alone, it is estimated that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour.^[85][86] Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007.^[87] In Niger, slavery is also a current phenomenon. A Nigerian study has found that more than 800,000 people are enslaved, almost 8% of the population.^[88][89][90] Pygmies, the people of Central Africa's rain forest,^[91] live in servitude to the Bantus.^[92] Some tribal sheiks in Iraq still keep blacks, called Abd, which means servant or slave in Arabic, as slaves.^[93] Child slavery has commonly been used in the production of cash crops and mining. According to the U.S. Department of State, more than 109,000 children were working on cocoa farms alone in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) in 'the worst forms of child labor' in 2002.^[94]

In November 2006, the International Labour Organization announced it will be seeking "to prosecute members of the ruling Myanmar junta for crimes against humanity" over the continuous forced labour of its citizens by the military at the International Court of Justice.^[95][96] According to the International Labor Organization (ILO), an estimated 800,000 people are subject to forced labour in Myanmar.^[97][98]

The Ecowas Court of Justice is hearing the case of Hadijatou Mani in late 2008, where Ms. Mani hopes to compel the government of Niger to end slavery in its jurisdiction. Cases brought by her in local courts have failed so far.^[99]

Human trafficking

Main article: Human trafficking

Trafficking in human beings (also called human trafficking) is sometimes referred to as a form of slavery. The opponents of the practice point out that victims are tricked, lured by false promises, or forced into a "debt slavery" situation by the use against them of coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat and use of physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs of abuse to control their victims.^[100]

Whilst the majority of victims are women, and sometimes children, who are forced into prostitution (in which case the practice is called sex trafficking), victims also include men, women and children who are forced into manual labour.^[101]

Due to the illegal nature of human trafficking, its exact extent is unknown. A US Government report published in 2005, estimates that 600,000-800,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.^[102]

See also

Various

Slavery by region

Slavery by religion and era

Opposition and resistance

Films

Ageism · Biphobia · Heterophobia · Homophobia · Racism · Sexism
 · Speciesism · Religious intolerance
Reverse discrimination · Xenophobia