Slaving Over a Hot…..

Although it took almost a century to abolish slavery, the very notion of such forced labor is repugnant to free people everywhere. Yet it took the United States almost a century and a Civil War to abolish the practice (in 1865) even as tiny nations like Haiti banned the slavery that built them vastly earlier (1804). As we are on the verge of celebrating the 149^th anniversary of the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment (December 6^th), it is worthwhile to recall the words of section one: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” It is also essential to realize that it is virtually impossible to live and shop in a modern environment without supporting a marketplace based on forced human labor. Slavery is anything but dead.

According to the highly respected site callandresponse.com, there are approximately 27 million slaves on earth today, 80% of whom are women and children. In 2009, slave traders made eight times the entire U.N. budget, and there are more slaves today than at any other time in history according to the site. Forced prostitution and involuntary manual labor under harsh conditions and unceasing hours crush the lives and spirits of peoples everywhere, even pockets of such workers here in the United States. An article in the Baltimore Chronicle (March 6, 2009) notes: “thousands annually trafficked in America in over 90 cities; around 17,000 by some estimates and up to 50,000 according to the CIA, either from abroad or affecting US citizens or residents as forced labor or sexual servitude.” Almost half the slavery in the United States is in the sex trade.

But since such slave labor is also now intimately enmeshed in the manufacturing and food-processing chain worldwide, some of our most basic and innocent purchases have roots in forced labor (note the Asian shrimp farm processing plant pictured above, for example). If you want to see how many slaves work for you, please visit madeinafreeworld.org. Is this site legit? FastCompany.com (September 22^nd) writer, Ariel Schwartz found out: “The site, created in a collaboration between anti-slavery nonprofit Call + Response and the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, uses a complex algorithm to calculate how many slaves work for you based on a number of questions, including how much jewelry you own, whether you're a gadget geek, what's in your medicine cabinet, and even whether you've paid for sex (you'll just have to check out the site to get the details on that one).

“After going through the process, I discovered that there are 101 slaves toiling away for me. That is actually a fairly low number, according to Justin Dillon of Call + Response. ‘The issue seems far away but the truth is you can't leave your home in the morning without touching something that was made with slavery,’ he says. In this case, a slave--or forced laborer--is defined as ‘anyone who is forced to work without pay, being economically exploited, and is unable to walk away.’…Call + Response obviously can't take into account the brand name of every product in your home, but the Slavery Footprint algorithm is still pretty detailed--it uses information from the Department of Labor, Department of State, and Transparency International, among other organizations.”

Bother you enough to want to do something about it? “Call + Response is also offering an app that lets people check in to storefronts (a la Foursquare) to let them know that they want slavery-free products. The app also allows people to directly send letters to over 1,000 brands to demand an end to slavery in their products--and then share the companies' responses to create a crowdsourced database. By taking these actions, users receive Free World Points, which Dillon likens to carbon offsets.” FastCompany.com. Ending this practice starts with awareness of the problem and then action to force it to end.

I’m Peter Dekom, and no matter how tough these times are for most of us, they’re a whole lot harder for forced laborers.