Modern Day Slavery

While you read this essay, why don’t you sit back and enjoy a bar of your favorite chocolate. That silky smooth texture, that sweet harmony of cocoa and milk whipped together for you to savor. What could possibly spoil the enjoyment? What if I tell you that the chocolate you are currently indulging is made with a single hidden ingredient? And do you know what that hidden ingredient is in chocolates? It is SLAVERY! Yes, most of the chocolate you buy in the gas station or a candy bar is made with what kids are enslaved to harvest. Some of these chocolates are Mars, M&M candy bars and Hershey products. This, I must say, is the bitter truth of chocolates. Unfortunately, slavery is behind all sorts of products. Everything from carpets and cocoa to bricks and steel.

Wikipedia defines slavery as a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slavery comes in many forms and categories but they all mean the same, to capture people in order to force them to work against their own wishes and without receiving any pay. Slavery has existed since civilization came into existence. Some of the forms of slavery in the past were chattel slavery, debt bondage labor and forced labor. Chattel slavery is the original form of slavery where people were treated as properties that could be bought or sold. The slaves were simply called “vocal instruments” because they had a voice and they had a sole but yet they simply could be bought and sold and used as tools. In the transatlantic, people traded Negro’s as if they were buying a new car. Debt bondage or what is termed “hereditary collateral debt bondage” whereby people inherit debts of their grandfather then their parents and so on. This is the most common form of slavery now days and can be found across the world. Forced labor is when a person has to work against their own will and without any freedom of choice. Such labor still exists today in some countries. In India, young girls are forced to marry at such young age to serve their husband for eternity.

In the US, slavery was abolished legally in the year 1865 when they approved the 13th Amendment, just when American Civil War ended. Even though slavery was abolished after the civil war, a generation later, it was still in practice. Many people assume that the Emancipation Proclamation, issued by President Abraham Lincoln abolished slavery once and for all. They are wrong. The Emancipation proclamation did not stop slavery. It simply changed it just a little bit. When did slavery actually end? Till this day it still hasn’t.

Human trafficking commonly referred to as the modern day form of slavery is actually the second largest and most profitable criminal industry in the world right behind drugs. But what we don’t realize is that it is happening right here in our own neighborhood. Thirty million is the number of slaves in the world today. There are approximately ten million people who are enslaved in India alone. And every day, an estimated twenty-seven million men, woman or children are tricked, abducted, sold or born into slavery around the world. These cases of modern day slavery occur in every country today, from South Asia to North America with the exception of two countries, Iceland and Greenland. And the slavery occurs in a variety of forms including forced labor, debt bondage, sex trafficking, child labor and child soldiers. In the world that we enjoy in freely, they are being acquired, held and exploited as property and a hot commodity. Modern day slave traders make an estimated $32 billion dollars a year. That is about the same as Apple’s and Microsoft’s annual profit combined.

According to the FBI. gov, official site, there are at least one million new victims of human trafficking a year with half of them being children. This is because children are easier to control in labor conditions. And these kidnapped children are placed in street prostitution, massage parlors, domestic service, hospitality industries and landscaping while others are kept behind closed doors, in residential home brothels and the backrooms of restaurants and nail salons. In Uganda, Africa, children between the ages of five and twelve are abducted and forced to become child soldiers. They are forced to kill or torture others and are brainwashed. If they refuse, they are tortured or even killed. Over 65,000 children have been abducted from their schools, homes or the streets in Uganda alone. Even if some manage to escape, they are forever scarred by the horrific acts of violence they have witnessed.

Many traffickers usually prey on people from an economically depressed area where there are a few opportunities to maintain employment. These people are promised of a place to stay, a profitable job or education opportunities by their traffickers but what they do not know is they are actually potential victims of slavery. It is only when the victims arrive at their destination that they discover the true nature of the trafficker’s motives and find themselves trapped in a life of forced labor or even prostitution.

According to a wide range of organizations, the chocolate industry is accused of covering up the trafficking of children and the use of child labor on the cocoa plantations. The Ivory Coast in Africa is the world’s largest cocoa producer. About half of the entire world’s cocoa beans (used in chocolate) are made there and ninety percent of the work is slave labor. Abidjan, Ivory Coast, houses the largest chocolate manufacturers in the world. Nestle, Cargill, ADM and the Swiss company, Barry Callebaut (the largest supplier of cocoa mass), all have their head offices in the Abidjan with seven hundred employees. Forty-two percent of the world’s cocoa production comes from the Ivory Coast. Together, these companies buy almost the entire production.

Mali is one of the world’s poorest countries. A country with little or no export. Children are said to be smuggled from Mali to the cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast. Trafficking is said to take place from the city’s bus station, then they are taken to the border town of Zegoua and from there they are smuggled across the border to Ivory Coast. These children range from 12 to 14 years old. These trafficked children generally come from rural areas. In 2006, 132 children were being trafficked from Mali and most of them were young boys. The trafficking of children should not actually be possible after the largest chocolate manufacturers signed an agreement with ILO (International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labor), a part of the UN in 2001 called the Harken Engle protocol. It was to stop child labor and the trafficking of children in the chocolate industry after 2008. Now whenever you eat a chocolate, think of those hands which picked those beans.

“Why can’t we end this once and for all? I mean, we put people on the moon, we have dolphin friendly tuna and gelatin shark fin soup, why can’t we do the same for kids and people?” you may ask. Well, let me tell you, the key to end slavery is to get educated. Knowledge is power. And I recently realized that there are many people who know very little or nothing about modern day slavery or human trafficking. It’s time for the world to focus on acknowledging slavery still exists, it has never gone away and is bigger now than it ever was before. We all need to wake up and come out of our comfort zone to see that the world we live in is not as safe as we think it is. Children are hanging on their lives while you are busy munching on your chocolate bar. Every day, twenty-one thousand die of hunger and the absence of life’s most basic necessity. Children are at risk every day because of exploitation. They are not enjoying their childhood. These kids are prisoners. They are slaves.

People should never be bought or sold. Every child has a voice. A voice waiting to be heard. Every child has a right to his or her freedom. A freedom to control their own lives. Every child has the potential to do good and the potential to change the world. Every child deserves the right to live. Place yourself in their shoes. Imagine if this was you or your brother or sister being used day in and day out. How will you act against these injustices around the world? Together, we can take another step closer to abolishing slavery for good. Many of these children are clinging onto their lives. And through our help, they can get the support they need. If we don’t stand up and stop this before it is too late, then who will? “God has a plan to help bring justice to the world, and his plan is us.” — Gary Haungen. And there is no better time to act then now. “Fighting modern slavery is a shared responsibility. Together we can and must end this most serious ongoing criminal civil rights violation. “President Barack Obama. So let’s stand up against injustice. Stand up for those who can’t. Stand up against slavery.