Modern Day Slavery

During Social Studies, we are currently studying about slavery. We first started to learn about historical slavery in America. We were assigned to read the award winning book "To Be A Slave" by Julius Lester as an introduction to slavery and to learn the basics of slavery. This book helped us learn about the lives of former slaves. While we were learning about slavery and how slaves were treated, I was astonished by how cruel Americans were to black people. Not only did they make them do daily labor with no salary and breaks, but they were whipped and beaten if they even stopped for a little break. It came to my attention that almost every slave, despite some slaves who did have reasonably generous masters, were always given no freedom. They couldn't worship Allah (or at least not in front of there masters without being beaten as a punishment). Slaves were almost never allowed to go out and they received the minimum amount of food and only 1 pair of clothes, (2 if there masters were nice during winter) and 1 pair of shoes throughout whole there slave life.  Slavery was a cruel and injustice time period for Americans and its shocking to even believe slavery existed between the white and the blacks because we have come such a long way from segregating the blacks.  Furthermore, it went from blacks and white not being allowed to share schools, water fountains, buses, and even toiletes, to now having a black man serve as a president for our country.  So I guess you could say we should be proud of finally achieving some equality between the white and black people, finally giving the black their 'merican' freedom where they can also freely practice the amendments and practice the rights of a white man. 

It has been about 150 years since slavery has ended. It has ended right? Sadly no, in fact it has only gotten worse. What is modern day slavery? Its pretty much like the historical slavery you remember. Cruel masters, beating and cruel punishment, forced into labor, payed basically nothing, and overall  both types of slaves sufferd an equal amount of pain. Sure we all thought slavery has ending, and as a matter of fact, ending a long, long time ago. Well sadly you hare extremely mistaken. The amount of slaves has only increased 8 times since the amount of slaves in the 1800's. Moreover, with a estimated total of about 29 million slaves right now, you cant help thinking why? Why and what are 29 million slaves doing here on earth. Well sadly every modern day slave out there didn't want to be a slave but somehow got forced into the life they lead right now. Some of the ways modern day slaves became slaves can be either be through debt bondage. Debt bondage is when  when a poor human being is desperate for money because they need (for example) money to pay for their son to get treatment from a doctor so there son doesn't die. Therefore, since there desperate they go to a get a loan and in return the person who gave them there loans asks for a huge amount of money which they know the people cannot pay. So they replace an amount of money with their labor. Eventually there loaner turns into their master and there forced to work for them till they die or until they pay their loans, whichever comes first (generally death). That type of situation is one of the known forms of modern day slavery called bonded labor. Other types of modern day consist of forced labor (when a person is kidnapped or forced by their parents into working for a person). Another form is called sex trafficking when generally women are deceived into prostituion, however in almost all types of modern day slaves sex abuse exists between masters and their slaves. Overall, I feel its outrageous how women aronund the world get minuplated and forced into marrying and being sexuality active at even the age of 11. Then on the other hand, we have women in other Countires who are studying and learning and exceling in their acedemcis. We live in a world were half the women are forced to sheild their desire to study and the other half where women dread and use school as a source to 'hang out' with their friends. We live in a world were people half the women are forced to have a baby at the age of 11; and the other choosing to have a baby at the age of 16. If theres one thing that Ive learnt from this unit is that not only do we need to help these women but we need to appericate. We need to appericate what we have and what our parents give us. Though this may sound cliche, its the truth. We live in a world were were spolit with various oppurtunities and we shove it away because we just 'scared' or 'lazy'. We complain about not getting the latest Iphone when those women complain about not getting enough food to eat everyday. I just find it propesterous how people in the world know and can live knowing that women like them go through so much worse than us and yet we dont even bother helping. We have the capabilty to change the world and their life, it is our responsibility to change the lives of these women. We cant just let these thoughts sink into our brain and drain our hearts out with the overwhelm emotion of sadness, we must actually do something about it.

Many people think slavery is and has been gone for a while now, but the truth is slavery in the 1800 still exists right now in 2000s. Worldwide people became slaves  either because of debt boundage where they where desperate for some money and ask loaners, people who lend them money, and in return they ask for a wedge a money generally a amount which is to immense for a them to pay. Therefore, there only other option is to work as a part of their loaners industry as a labourer Many industries are formed and built up from slavery, after all who do you think makes your blue jeans and fancy carpets. The carpeting industry, an industry where people are tortured, beaten, and hurt just for the price of a carpet. A industry where young children ranging from the age of 5 to 35 are kidnapped or sold away from their parents and locked into a house where they forced to work for about 12-15 hours a day. These kids are barely feed and are paid nothing in return of their labor. Sounds familiar, well it is. This was exactly the same situation of an American Slave a few 100 years ago, they would spend their days picking cotton and then at the end of the day they were barely feed and paid nothing for their labor. Also both American and Modern day slavery use the concept of violence as their fuel to keep their slaves working hard. Many in the carpet industry talk about how if they ever stopped picking or made a bad carpet at the end of their day they would be harassed and beaten, same way if an African American slave had stopped picking cotton or had not picked enough cotton they would be whipped. And like Ravi Shankar Kumar, a modern day slave who recently at the age of 12 had gained his freedom from a corporation called BVA explains that “ With the blood running down my finger I was made to weave. Only when it became so bad that I could not possibly weave anymore, would I stop. And the moment I did stop, I was beaten up. “ Sadly modern day slavery and American historical slavery hasn't change and although they are so many cruel similarities there is always a bright side to a story and in this story the bright side is the Abolitionists. Even in the American Historical Slavery days abolitionists gave their life into getting rid of slavery, give Fredrick Douglas for example, and look what he has accomplished with the help of other abolitionists. African Americans went from tutored slaves to voting citizens. So this teaches us there is hope to abolishing slavery, there are many solutions to ending modern day slavery. For example, start questioning companies. Start asking them where the stuff they're selling is being made and if it is through child slavery, sue them or aware someone if it is so we can stop this company from continuing and uses slaves to make their merchandise. And sure raising awareness will help, but if you think ‘awareness’ is going to be the key to ending modern day slavery, you are completely wrong.  After all, “a bird can only fly, after it can learn to flap its wings.”- Riya Devgan.  Same way if we want change, awareness is only our first step, awareness is learning to flap our wings, but flying comes with questioning society companies and telling the abolitionists or other abolitionist based organisations. Only you can make a difference and only we can make a change. Start to question and remember to tell. Even something that simple can make a difference in our world.