Modern Slavery
More than 40 million people were living in modern slavery in 2016, according to a new report released 19 September 2017. about 15 million people were living in forced marriages, and more than 25 million people were forced into labor. In the year 1861, for comparison, there were about 4 million slaves in the Confederate States of America. By the time of abolition, by one estimate the number of slaves in Brazil had dropped to around 800,000. So there are roughly five times as many slaves today as there were in the 19th Century.
The study by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the Walk Free Foundation, in partnership with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) said that women and children accounted for 71 percent of those in modern slavery. Debt bondage accounted for nearly half of those forced into labor, while nearly 4 million people were forced to work by state authorities.
The International Organization for Migration [IOM] reported an estimated 242,179 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2016 through 20 July, arriving mostly in Italy and Greece. According to official figures from Italy’s Ministry of the Interior, arrivals as of 21 July were at 84,052, a number nearly identical to the total in 2015 at this time, when Italian authorities noted arrivals to date of 84,026. The annual rate would amount to about 150,000 through Africa and into Libya, nearly three times the annual rate of the slave trade.
In the 18th Century, Africa's population was probably about 100,000,000, whereas today the population is over 800,000,000. Thus relative to the total population pool, the burden of the slave trade [which was involuntary] was three times that of the Mediterranean refugee traffic [which is in some sense voluntary].
Almost one-third of all Southern families owned slaves. As for the number of slaves owned by each master, 88% held fewer than twenty, and nearly 50% held fewer than five. The 1860 Census found the total number of slaves in the USA as 3,950,528.
On May 13, 1888, the imperial family passed Lei Aurea, “the Golden Law”, making Brazil the last nation in the Western Hemisphere to formally abolish slavery, at which time there were about 1,500,000 slaves in Brazil.
The term “forced or compulsory labour” is defined by the International Labour Organization (ILO) Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29), Article 2.1, as “all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”. Forced labour includes practices such as slavery, practices similar to slavery, debt bondage and serfdom – themselves defined in other international instruments, namely, the League of Nations Slavery Convention (1926) and the United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956).
The ILO has produced estimates of forced labour along with the underlying methodology in 2005 and 2012. The ILO estmated that almost 21 million people are victims of forced labour – 11.4 million women and girls and 9.5 million men and boys, while almost 19 million victims are exploited by private individuals or enterprises and over 2 million by the state or rebel groups. Of the total number of 20.9 million forced labourers, 18.7 million (90%) are exploited in the private economy, by individuals or enterprises. Out of these, 4.5 million (22% total) are victims of forced sexual exploitation, and 14.2 million (68%) are victims of forced labour exploitation, in economic activities such as agriculture, construction, domestic work and manufacturing.
The Walk Free Foundation [WFF] produces the Global Slavery Index, which provides an estimate of modern slavery country by country, and also a global total. The WFF 2016 Global Slavery Index estimates that 45.8 million people are subject to some form of modern slavery throughout the world [including forced marriage]. There is a very clear distinction between a forced and an arranged marriage. In arranged marriages, the families of both spouses take a leading role in the arrangement but the choice whether to consent remains with the individuals. In a forced marriage, at least one party does not consent to the marriage, and some element of duress or coercion is generally present. The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which states that “no marriage shall be entered into without the free and full consent of the intending spouses.”
Where forced marriage occurs, it tends to be a practice that has occurred as a result of a host of different socioeconomic and cultural factors. Societal pressure, poverty, illiteracy, and family status can all be contributing factors for forced marriages. Families living in poverty with unstable or non-existent income sources see a daughter both as an economic burden who must be married as soon as possible to take financial strain off of the family, and also a potential financial relief if she is able to be married off to someone of higher economic standing. Forced marriage can also be used to settle a debt or to improve family status through the formation or fomentation of social alliances. This pressure is exacerbated in rural areas where the parents and sometimes the young woman herself are subject to social duress from the surrounding community, sometimes resulting in a higher dowry that must be paid by the young woman’s parents.
But forced marriage is not chattel slavery, which is what most people have in mind when they think of slavery, such as that existing in the United States before the Civil War. Such slavey had existed legally throughout many parts of the world since the beginning of recorded history. Slaves were actual property who could be bought, sold, traded or inherited. The victims of forced marriage cannot be sold or otherwise transfered.
Modern slavery is a complex and often hidden crime that crosses borders, sectors and jurisdictions. The groups responsible for human trafficking are all too often the same groups that send weapons and narcotics across international borders. Or they are terrorist organizations that finance their attacks by smuggling desperate people. According to the NGO Human Rights First, traffickers earn an estimated $150 billion every year.
In 2015, world leaders adopted the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG)s: 17 interrelated goals and 169 associated targets to guide global development. SDG Target 8.7 calls on governments to: "Take immediate and effective measures to eradicate forced labour, end modern slavery and human trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end child labour in all its forms."
The world population was about 7.5 billion in 2017, compared to the roughly 1.2 billion world population in the 1865-1888 timeframe when slavery was abolished in the USA and Brazil. The world population in 2017 is about six times that of the late 19th Century. There were about 5.5 million slaves freed in the USA and Brazil, while the ILO estimate of modern slavery is about 20 million. So there are about four times as many slaves today as there were in the 19th Century.
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