Despite centuries of struggle, slavery has not been eradicated from our world. Slavery is readily found on the farms of India, the heritable debt-bondage brick making kilns of Pakistan, and the cocoa plantations of Cote d'Ivoire.
Slavery thrives in the rug loom sheds of Nepal; the sex-slavery brothels of Manila, Thailand, Japan and the U.S.; the water-carrier chattel in Mauritania; the charcoal-making camps of Brazil; child prostitution in Ecuador; and child camel-jockey riding for the wealthy Sheikhs in United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar.
Migrant trafficking exists for sexual labor throughout visa-free Canadian borders and into the U.S.A. Slavery exists in the garment manufacturing sweatshops of Los Angeles and New York, in the numerous sex clubs of St. Paul and Minneapolis, or domestic servitude in the wealthiest homes in Paris, London, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., just to name a few.
Human slavery and trafficking could not exist without organized crime, corruption of law enforcement officials, and overwhelming, insatiable greed. (For excellent sources on up-to-date worldwide analysis, nation by nation, go to: http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/index.html)
No government in the world today officially endorses slavery. Banned worldwide, slavery thrives in every nation on the face of the earth. Various numerous international covenants, U.N. convention documents and protocols, and the annual U.S. assessments report on world activities all prescribe that the scourge of all forms of slavery must end. Let us look at some of those different forms of bondage within the world today:
Sex slavery
Astonishingly, people can really buy and sell women and children and get away with it. Induced by force, fraud, coercion, and imprisonment, sex slavery is the fastest growing and most hideous form of modern day human bondage.
Former Austrian figure skating champion Wolfgang Schwartz was sentenced in 2002 for trafficking women from Eastern Europe to Austria for forced prostitution.
Sex slavery is growing fastest in Central and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. Several billions of dollars are paid and made through sexual exploitation such as forced prostitution, strip and lap dancing, pedophilia, ephebophilia, homosexuality, and the production of pornography by organized crime rings, gangsters, pimps, corrupt government officials and law enforcement ranks.
This criminal and immoral activity results in the physical, mental, and spiritual abuse of millions of women and children each year worldwide. And, yes, even in these United States.
Some numbers
Of those 17,500 victims trafficked into the U.S. each year, it is estimated that 80% are female, and 50% of the females are children. Of those females, 70% end up as slaves in brutal sexual exploitation of various types. They are forced to work as slave prostitutes, who pay off the debts imposed by their organized smugglers, debts ranging from $40,000 to $60,000 per woman or child. They are forced to pay exorbitant monthly expenses while performing 4,000 acts of sexual intercourse each year to meet their quota, at $10 to $25 per act. After two to five years, if they are not already sick or dying, they may possibly be freed from their debt as long as their quota has been met.
As an example of the lucrativeness within this industry, Kevin Bales of FreeTheSlaves.net recently told this journalist that he met one woman working as a sex slave in a brothel in Thailand who was purchased for $2,000 and had made approximately $80,000 for the brothel.
A recent U.N. three-year study on violence against women stated there is a "gendercide of 200 million women missing" in the world today, some of which can be traced to 700,000 women sold into prostitution worldwide annually. Not long ago, sex gangs in California were found to have kidnapped and enslaved girls as young as 11 through 14 years into street and brothel prostitution, Karaoke bars, and strip clubs within the state.
The computer that we work with in our offices and homes may be legally manufactured by fair trade practices in the Far East. However, the computer manufacturer itself may be contributing to the slave industry by rewarding their executive employees with paid sex entertainment vacations that exploit innocent women and children.
The 2005 TIP Report released by the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons on June 3, 2005, states that "of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked across international boarders annually, 80% of the victims are female and 50% of those females are children. Hundreds of thousands of these women and children are used in prostitution each year." UNICEF reports that each year about one million children are sold or recruited into sex labor. The ILO in Geneva thinks the actual number is more like four million.
More than half
U.S. Department of State's Senior Advisor on Trafficking in Persons, Ambassador John R. Miller, told this journalist recently that sex slavery is the largest category of trans-national slavery. It is intrinsically linked to prostitution and pornography. Therefore, in those areas that are most permissive in these sex trades, the number of victims increases. More than half of human slavery involves the selling of women, girls, and boys to commercial sex traffickers. Each year, two million women, and children worldwide are forced into brutal sex with strangers.
According to UNICEF statistics, the sex trafficking industry exploits children alone to the tune of $10 billion a year. Behind each dollar transaction, we find a human tragedy.
Neary's story in Cambodia
Neary grew up in rural Cambodia. Her parents died when she was a child, and, in an effort to give her a better life, her sister married her off when she was 17. Three months later, she and her husband went to visit a fishing village. Her husband rented a room in what Neary thought was a guesthouse. However, when she woke the next morning, her husband was gone. The owner of the house told Neary her husband had sold her for $300 and that she was actually inside a brothel. For five years, five to seven men raped Neary every day. In addition to brutal physical abuse, Neary was infected with HIV and contracted AIDS. The brothel threw her out when she became sick, and she eventually found her way to a local shelter. Neary died of HIV/AIDS at the age of 23.
(Source: U.S. State Dept. TIP Report 2005)
NEXT: Child Sex Tourism
(Editor's note: Read all 16 columns on the subject of Trafficking of Human Slaves by Barbara Kralis at RenewAmerica.com: "21st Century Slavery," "Modern Day Slavery Flourishes," "Different Forms of Human Slavery," "Child Sex Tourism," "Slavery as Domestic Servitude," "Combatant Human Slaves," "Involuntary Human Servitude," "Child Slaves for Sport," "Trafficking
The views expressed by RenewAmerica columnists are their own and do not necessarily reflect the position of RenewAmerica or its affiliates.