*This Video may be unsettling for some viewers BUT should be watched anyway.
RATED (R) = REQUIRED VIEWING for MINORS.

There are an Estimated 27 Million Slaves in the World Today.
(U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: 2007; Kevin Bales: Free the Slaves Campaign)

That is more than twice the number of people taken during the entire history of the
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from Africa spanning earlier centuries.

Today’s slaves are not bought and sold at public auctions nor do their owners hold any legal title to them. Yet they are just as surely trapped, controlled and brutalized as slaves in the past from our history books.

As pointed out by the Call and Response Movie trailer above, the major obstacle that we face in the fight against modern-day slavery is that the crime is hidden and is not part of the current collective consciousness. Initially, it shocks the general public to learn that slavery still exists and is widespread. It is even more shocking for them to realize that it may exist in their own backyards. It seems unbelievable. It conflicts with our deepest sense of what is possible in our country and our communities.

The CIA and U.S. State Department estimate that over 50,000 women and children are smuggled into the United States as illegal immigrants each year. Many of them are automatically trafficked into the illegal slave trade or are already "owned" as commodities before they even enter the country.

The U.S. Government Estimates that 14,500 to 17,500 People
are Trafficked into the United States each Year to be Used as Slaves.
(U.S. Department of Justice; U.S. Department of State, Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report: 2007)

An estimated 40,000 women and young girls from Burma alone are forced into the sex trade industry in Thailand every year. About 14% of Haiti’s under-18 population, or 300,000 children, are "restaveks" – children working as domestic slaves. Thirty percent of these children receive only one meal per day. The numbers are staggering and this only reflects a small example of the total demographics worldwide.

Why Does Slavery Exist?

Slavery Today = Disposable People

Yes, we mean real slavery. People held against their will, forced to work and paid nothing.
Slavery DID NOT END in the mid 1800's as most people think.

Slavery is one of the most terrible human rights abuses taking place right now in the modern world, yet many people aren’t aware of it. Although real slavery has existed for thousands of years, changes in the world’s economy and societies over the past 50 years have enabled a resurgence of this tragic human plight. As a result, there are more people trapped in slavery worldwide today than at any other time in human history.

Contributing Factors
• Recent population explosion has tripled the number of people in the world, with most growth taking place in the developing world.
• Rapid social and economic change, have displaced many to urban centers and their outskirts, where people have no "safety net" and no job security.
• This “supply” makes slaves cheaper today than they have ever been. Since they are so inexpensive, slaves are not considered a major investment that is worth maintaining. If slaves get sick, are injured, outlive their usefulness, or become troublesome to the slaveholder, they are simply dumped or killed.
• Government corruption and judicial mismanagement worldwide unfortunately allows slavery to go unpunished, even though it is illegal in almost every country in the world.

A Human Being on the Slave Market Today Sells for an Average of US$90.
(Kevin Bales - Free the Salves: Slavery in the 21st Century)

Becasue of the facts listed above, millions of people worldwide have become vulnerable to the illegal slave trade. Slaveholders and Human Traffickers now look to profit through the theft of people’s lives. This new epidemic of modern slavery has two prime characteristics that make it successful:

Slaves Today are Cheap and They are Disposable

The Child Sex Trade and Teen Prostitution

Sex tourism is a very lucrative industry that spans the entire globe. In 1998, the International Labour Organization reported its calculations that 2-14% of the gross domestic product of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and Thailand derives from sex tourism. In addition, while Asian countries, including Thailand, India, and the Phillipines, have long been prime destinations for child-sex tourists, and in more recent years, tourists have increasingly traveled to Mexico and Central America for their sexual exploits as well.

The most significant societal factor that pushes children into prostitution is poverty. Many nations with thriving sex tourism industries are nations that suffer from widespread poverty resulting from turbulent politics and unstable economies. Poverty often correlates with illiteracy, limited employment opportunities, and bleak financial circumstances for families. Children in these families become easy targets for procurement agents in search of young children. They are lured away from broken homes by "recruiters" who promise them jobs in other cities and then force the children into prostitution once they have taken them away. Some poor families themselves actually prostitute their children or sell their children into the sex trade to obtain desperately needed money.

Children are being Sold to Brothels abroad for as little as 15 cents!

The actions taken by foreign governments may directly or indirectly encourage child sex tourism. National governments in countries which are struggling economically have become increasingly tourist-oriented in their search for profitable sources of income. These governments sometimes turn a blind eye to the sex tourism industry, thus allowing the industry to perpetuate sexual exploitation in order to encourage tourism in their country in general. Thus, by directly promoting tourism while indirectly allowing this liberal attitude to rise, they are in fact directly allowing children to become prostituted on their streets.

With corruption rife at every level, campaigners and activists are having a
tough time cracking down on Child Exploiters and Human Traffickers.

The trafficking of women for prostitution and the enslavement of children for sexual exploitation are extremely profitable activities. They are quite often directly tied to organized crime but with the corruption of government officials and police, efforts to combat these issues are greatly hindered.

In a few years' time, Brazil will be hosting the World Cup, which will fuel its booming economy. The country's well known exotic and erotic reputation however, has long been attracting an unwanted type of tourist. Thousands of European singles pour into the country on charted flights each week looking for cheap sex. Brazil has become the new paedophile capital of the world and the country's own politicians have been caught colluding in the sex trade industry.

(Excerpts from BBC News World: Brazil's Sex Tourism Boom -by Chris Rogers -30 July 2010)

Young children are supplying the need for an increasing demand from foreign tourists who travel to Brazil for sex holidays, according to a BBC investigation. The legal age for prostitution in this region is 18, but many of the workers are much younger. The country is currently overtaking Thailand for sex tourism and is now the world's most popular sex-tourist destination. Chris Rogers from the BBC reported on how Brazil is now attempting to curb the problem, but with very little results.

Rogers met Pia, 13-year-old from Recife, Pernambuco, Brazil. She is a child prostitute that works from the same street corner every night in order to fund her mother's crack cocaine habit.

Pia first started working as a prostitute at the age of seven, and Unicef estimates there are 250,000 child prostitutes like her in Brazil. Taxi drivers work with the girls who are too young to get into the bars. One offered Rodgers a two for the price of one and a lift to a local motel.

Twelve-year-old Maria wants to live with her mother but she can't because her pimp, who forced her to work on the streets and in brothels, threatened to kill her if she tried to escape. She told Chris Rogers that she is still terrified for her life.

Despite assurances of a police crackdown on child prostitution, there appears to be little evidence of "sex tourism" disappearing from the streets of Recife, or in Brazil at all for that matter.

The connection between the demand for sex services and the sexual exploitation of women and children is evident. There appears to be little question that traffickers would not be engaged in this illegal but lucrative trade if a considerable demand for these types of "products" and services did not exist. There are ways however that YOU can help fight this plague: -> SEE How Can I Help?

SECRET SLAVERY EXISTS in the AMERICAS Including the United States... Maybe in Your Own Backyard!

The demand for cheap labor, the sex trade industry and child exploitation services can be linked to existing migration patterns, as immigrant community infrastructures have emerged from the lack of a safe and legal means of migration into the United States. Sex trafficking also appears to be closely linked to migrant smuggling enterprises run by Asian, Mexican, and Eastern European organized crime networks, among other organized crime factions and gangs found here in the U.S. domestically.

Migrant laborers in the American continents will regularly travel from state to state looking for work as it becomes seasonally available. Most often the conditions of this life style are very harsh and difficult. Added to this can be long hours, unsafe work environments and renlentless owners. Dishonest labor managers, corrupt officials and criminal Human Trafficking brokers frequently get involved, who then cheat and rob these workers of what little dignity and money they have left. Like the indentured servants (or slaves) of the past, these poor people most often cannot simply walk away. They have lost complete control of their lives and are being exploited and brutalized in terrible ways we cannot begin to imagine.

"The dangers faced by these people can not be overstated, they are at risk
from traffickers, state forces, kidnappers, drug gangs and the journey itself."

"Many people, including children as young as six years old, are forced to migrate
to seek seasonal employment in conditions that are close to slavery on toxic farms..."

(Slave Labour in Mexico-Migrate or Die: Mexico's Hdden Crisis of Migration-Indy Media Ireland-2009 by Sarah C.-Independent Witness)
Amnesty International USA - 2009 Annual Report for Mexico

When Human Traffickers disguise themselves as legitimate recruiters or employment brokers with a promise of paying jobs, many people are willing to sign on in an effort to escape poverty and have greater freedom. They are not aware that instead of true freedom, they are actually trading away their lives and being entrapped into a system of forced bondage and a life of permanent slavery.

Most immigrants will usually attempt to enter the U.S. and follow their dreams because someone has approached them and offered a job or regular employment. Each year, thousands of slaves are trafficked into the United States. These slaves are then put to work in fields, brothels, homes, mines, restaurants - anywhere that slave owners can feed their greed. (Kevin Bales - Free the Salves: Slavery Still Exists)

Slavery happens in nearly every country in the world and the U.S. and Europe are not immune. In addition, there may be people held in slavery right in YOUR OWN community. Research conducted with the University of California, Berkeley - found and documented an alarming number of slavery and Human Trafficking cases in more than 90 cities across the United States of America. (Kevin Bales - Free the Salves: Hidden Slaves)

Human Traffickers tend to prey on impoverished people who live in countries with little access to education, health care or jobs. Their victims have often left regions with collapsed economies or where a lack of opportunities for earning a living exists. They are often tricked into slavery through promises of a better life and a chance that they can send money home.

The basic rule for this global traffic in slaves is that victims flow from poorer regions into those areas that have richer economies. A recent study found the citizens of more than 35 countries enslaved in the United States, with the greatest numbers coming from China, Mexico, and Viet Nam. While it is true that most slaves in the United States are trafficked in from other countries, U.S. citizens are also even forced into slavery in various locations.

These new forms of slavery are directly connected to the global economy. From the impoverished sectors of the world this exploited labor flows into our own economy and into our daily lives. There are many organisations and local agencies which are working hard to liberate people from slavery but the task is more often overwhelming than not. YOU can however make a difference and help change all this.

How Can WE identify the Slaves in Our Own Communities?

The person might be a domestic worker, work in a restaurant, on a farm, in a shop, in a factory, or even as a prostitute. Watch for the following signs of slavery. The worker is likely to be enslaved if he or she:

• is working or being held against his or her will.
• is not free to change employers.
• do not control their own earnings.
• has been cheated into the payment of debt upon arrival.
• has had their passport or other documents taken away.
• are unable to move freely or is being watched or followed.
• are afraid to openly discuss themselves in the presence of others.
• has been assaulted, or have been threatened with assault for refusing to work.

If any of these apply, that person might be a victim of modern-day slavery. Modern slavery happens where workplaces are not monitored, worker wage and safety laws are not enforced, or where the work is not completely legal. In the American continents and the United States, Human Trafficking and forced labor have occurred most often in the following industries: Prostitution, Domestic Services, Agriculture, "Sweat Shop" style manufacturing facilities, Food Services, Entertainment, larger factories, and Landscaping.

The FREE the SLAVES Campaign has identified a number of factors why victims of Human Trafficking cannot simply walk away from their exploitative situations, such as:

• Fear – Most victims have been coerced, threatened and abused.
• Threats to family members in home country – Oftentimes traffickers threaten to abuse or murder family members if a victim refuses to work or attempts to run away.
• Sense of obligation – Some victims feel obligated to pay off their “debt”, even though it may be bogus and illegal.
• Sense of loyalty to the abuser – This may take place as a result of brainwashing or traumatic bonding. Some victims are made to feel that they themselves have done something wrong, and that the trafficker deserves to punish them.
• Language and social barriers – Extremely limited contact with the outside world leaves many victims isolated and many times without any understanding of the language or their location.
• Sense of shame – Some victims feel such an acute shame about the activities they have been forced into that they fear exposing themselves, and their secrets to anyone.
• Fear of police and immigration officials – Police corruption experienced in the victim's home country is often exploited by traffickers who terrify their victims with stories of what the police in the US may do to them.

What Else is Today’s Slavery? - Forced Labor Work Camps

Threatened by violence and held against their wills, people are enslaved for the purposes of exploitation: this is the meaning of modern slavery. Today, slaves are cheap and disposable. The poor, uneducated, women, children, indigenous or marginalized people become trapped by poverty and are powerless being forced or tricked into slavery. The sick, the injured, the elderly and the unprofitable are dumped and quickly replaced by other desperate people.

Parents desperately want to work so they can feed their hungry families. Young people want to work so they can pay for their schooling or that of their younger brothers and sisters. They are often tricked into believing they will be paid for their work.

A person who is poor and in need of money, perhaps for an emergency or because one of the family is ill, finds it hard to get a loan. Many times the only option is to pledge their physical labor in an effort to repay their debt. Some people will even resort to selling one of their children to cover such expenses.

People who are enslaved are usually unaware that they have any legal rights to freedom or are unable to take action and defend their rights, because of the threat of violence. They may otherwise be bound by a sense of misplaced duty or may even be mentally accustomed only to a life of forced servitude.

Slavery is illegal on virtually every continent and in nearly all countries worldwide. Unfortunately, governments are rarely willing to enforce the law or to even severly punish those who profit from Human Trafficking and slavery once they are caught.

Types of Slavery that Exist Today.
• Bonded Labor - A person becomes bonded when their labor is demanded as a means of repayment of a loan or money given in advance. There are 20 million people working as bonded laborers worldwide. This is particularly common in India, Pakistan, Nepal, Brazil and the Caribbean.
• Forced Labor - This affects people who are illegally recruited by governments, political parties or private individuals, and are forced to work, usually under the threat of violence. Burma’s military dictatorship for example enslaves tens of thousands of people who work as porters for the army and on government construction projects each year.
• Worst forms of Child Labor - This refers to children who work in dangerous or exploitative conditions. While not all child labor is slavery, millions of children worldwide work in conditions of slavery.
• Commercialized Sexual Exploitation of Children - Children are exploited through prostitution, trafficking and pornography. They are often kidnapped, bought, or forced to enter the sex market. Child sex tourism is particularly common in Asia.
• Early and Forced Marriage - Women and girls are married without choice and forced into a life of servitude, and often physical violence. This occurs in North Africa and many Asian countries.
• Traditional or ‘chattel’ Slavery - Today people are still bought and sold as commodities. They are often abducted from their homes, given as gifts, or even inherited as regular property. This is common in West Africa, particularly Mauritania.
• Human Trafficking - This involves the transport and/or trade of humans, usually women or children, for economic gain and involving force or deception. Often migrant women and girls are tricked and forced into domestic work and prostitution. Women from Asia, Africa, Central and Eastern Europe and South America are trafficked frequently to regions such as the U.S., E.U., Japan and the Middle East.

Bonded Labor is probably the most common form of modern slavery today and it affects millions of people worldwide. A person becomes bonded when their labor is "legitimately" demanded as a means of repayment for a loan or money given to them in advance. The majority of these people are found as laborers in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal. In these situations, a person can be trapped into a lifetime of hard labour just to pay the interest on as little as $35. (Kevin Bales - Free the Slaves: Bonded Labor Campaign)

Child Slavery and Exploitation

218 Million Children Aged 5-17 are Involved in Child Labor World Wide
(Recent figures from the ILO-International Labour Organisation)

In many developing countries around the world for example, rural working children are mainly engaged in agricultural activities such as harvesting crops, or collecting water, fuel and fodder. In many countries, poor girls will work as domestic servants for richer families, simply for meals, room and board. In almost half of these numbers reflected above however, you will also find children who work in hazardous conditions and most of them, regardless of the conditions, receive very little to no pay at all for their labors.

Children worldwide are hit even harder by Human Trafficking and the illegal slave trade as they are being forced into child labor or used as sex slaves since they are easier to control. These children are being beaten and tortured on a regular basis. Since children start at such young ages they are quite a commodity having a much longer life expectancy than most adults when placed under similar working conditions. They are however, still eventually exhausted as a "resource" and are "used up" in a short span of years. When this occurs, they are just discarded like taking out the garbage and often killed.

The ‘Restaveks’ - There are an estimated 300,000 child slaves in Haiti alone according to UNICEF. They’re called “restaveks” - a Creole term that means “stay-with”. But these children quite frequently do more than just “stay with” these families or "employers"; they are usually forced to work from dawn until dusk under poor conditions, and are often underfed, beaten and sexually abused in the process.

Young slaves harvest cocoa in the tropical forests for Chocolate factories. They work fishing boats off the coastal regions of many countries and make charcoal used to produce steel in Brazil. They weave carpets in India and harvest produce in the Americas - while the list goes on. These resources are used to make the products that reach our stores and are eventually used all the time in our homes.

(1) Children can take direct part in hostilities as "child soldiers", or (2) they can be used in support roles such as porters, messengers, look outs, spies, and sexual slaves; or (3) they can be used for political advantages either as "human shields" or in propaganda.  (from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia -Military Use of Children)

The children from entire villages have been kidnapped in the past and used by rebel militias as soldiers in countries that are under the constant threat of war and revolution. This has occurred in places like the Congo, Samalia, and Sierra Leone, as well as many other African countries where until just recently, the legal age for the draft into military service was only 15 years old (though age restrictions are rarely observed).

Other countries, for instance in southeast Asia, have been notorious in the past for using children in guerilla warfare tactics and even suicide bombings. The later is also quite common in the Middle East regions as well.

(PHOTO from the article: CHILD SOLDIERS- www.Vision.org -Fall 2008 issue -- “The rebels first abducted my brother in 1997. He has never come back. This year, one of my elder brothers and two younger sisters were also abducted, on the same night. None of them has returned." - Quoted from Lilian (12 y.o.), in: "When the Sun Sets, We Start to Worry...": An Account of Life in Northern Uganda)

It seems that the value of human life has taken on a greatly diminished role in many parts of the world. More recent United Nations initiatives have inacted proposals and taken other measures to prevent these type of war crimes but such things still go on unchecked today and on a regular basis.

Amnesty International has reported that it expresses concern for the plight of the tens of thousands of children associated with the armed forces and groups. They wish to draw attention to the scale of the recruitment and use of children in the military. These children are often given drugs, alcohol, and are systematically abused through torture, sexual violence and ill-treatment. Girls and some boys are used as sex slaves by the commanders or adult fighters. Other children have even been ordered and forced to slaughter their own family members.

Children are associated with armed groups and armed forces sometimes from the age of six years' old and can have spent up to 10 years in these forces. The World Bank in 2004 estimated that "child soldiers represented at least 20 percent of the fighting forces in the hot spots of Africa. Because of the large proportion of children serving with the armed groups, many older children quickly rise through the ranks to become non-commissioned or even junior officers. They usually suffer violent treatment during their training but will survive this only to then be sent directly into combat. Sometimes, this is the only life that many of these children will ever know.

We need YOUR help and support to become proactive and take a moral stand against these issues.
We can help you learn What YOU CAN DO to identify these problems and help other people.