Slavery to be Eradicated in 30 Years?

[Pearl]

There are, shockingly, more people in slavery today than at any time in human history - but campaigners think the world is close to a tipping point and that slavery may be eradicated in the next 30 years.

The estimated number of people in slavery - 27 million - is more than double the total number believed to have been taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade.

Ship records make it possible to estimate the number of slaves transported from Africa to the Americas and the Caribbean, from the 16th Century until the trade was banned in 1807 - and the figure is about 12.5 million people.

The figure of 27 million slaves today comes from researcher Kevin Bales, of Free the Slaves - who blames the huge figure on rapid population growth, poverty and government corruption.

Many people still think of slavery as a thing of the past, but it exists in many forms, on every continent - ranging from sex and labour trafficking, to debt bondage where people are forced to work off small loans.

But the International Labour Organization (ILO) - whose figure of 20.9 million people worldwide in forced labour does not include bonded labour - believes slavery can be completely eradicated.

The momentum has been growing for the last 10 years, says the ILO's Beate Andreas, pointing to a "growing movement and growing leadership on the part of key countries to take action".

She compares this struggle to the battle against HIV, where it took a number of years to generate the momentum and the commitment needed to overcome the epidemic.

Slavery is already illegal in every country in the world.

"We have not quite reached the tipping point, but it's much more difficult for countries and companies to get away with forced labour nowadays," Andreas says.

"There is reason to be optimistic. We have seen a sweeping change in recent years in terms of legislation and better regulation.

"There's a clear sign that more companies are becoming aware, and more governments are willing to take action. If we have the critical mass of leaders ready to take action, then it can be eradicated."

Bales says there was a time when law enforcement agencies knew how to deal with a truck full of drugs, but lacked clear procedures for dealing with a truck full of people. This is changing, he says.

BBC News - A tipping point in the fight against slavery?


I find it hard to believe that more people today are slaves than the number of Africans shipped across the Atlantic hundreds of years ago. It may be true, because there's more people in the world than ever. But the numbers are shockingly astounding.

I have doubts that slavery would ever be fully eradicated. It may be cracked down a lot more, but there will always be a pimp somewhere kidnapping young girls to work the streets, a business owner looking for slave labor for his selfish needs. And like this article points out, poverty is the biggest issue and it is not easy to eradicate that. I'd like to see poverty be a distant memory, but I'm not that optimistic.


Here's a link that explains why poverty can lead to slavery: BBC - Ethics - Slavery: Why slavery persists

[the iron horse]

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

Yes, we've all heard you mention your petty little story before. I'm sure your ancestors' slavery is really hard on you to this day

[maycocksean]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

I thought you were going to say that like most Americans--both black and white--who's family history goes back for generations in this country you likely have a black ancestors. . .

[Vlad n U 2]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

They let you teach?

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

This is an insensitive attitude to the history of slavery in this country.

Yes, there were a lot of white indentured servants in the colonial era who did not receive any wages for their work. But that doesn't put them on the same scale as the black slaves.

[corianderstem]

Someday soon, a bunch of politicians will stand up and gladhand each other to congratulate the world on eradicating slavery.

.... and the sex slaves, victims of human trafficking, will continue to go unnoticed by most of society.

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by corianderstem

Someday soon, a bunch of politicians will stand up and gladhand each other to congratulate the world on eradicating slavery.

.... and the sex slaves, victims of human trafficking, will continue to go unnoticed by most of society.

So true.

Those sex slaves will never fully heal from the hell they endured. I wouldn't be surprised if they suffer far worse PTSD than war veterans.

[Moonlit_Angel]

Well said, Cori. That there isn't more being done about that stuff is just appalling, though not all that surprising, sadly.

[Diemen]

Originally Posted by Vlad n U 2

They let you teach?

Let's keep insults out of this, please.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by the iron horse

In my classes when we are reading a story about slavery, I ask
students to raise their hands if they have ancestors who were
slaves.

All the black students raise their hands and then I raise mine.

Then a student will ask. "But you are white."

It's not surprising since most American students are only
taught a limited view of slavery in the world.

It's no wonder your students are confused, you're lying to them and not really understanding the difference between having an ancestor who can be traced and knowing why your race is a part of this country.

Originally Posted by the iron horse

The truth is slavery has existed in almost all cultures and all races.

This is very true, slavery has a long history well before the U.S., but that's about where your understanding ends.

Originally Posted by the iron horse

All of us have ancestors who were slaves.

This is completely false. There are plenty of people on this planet that have absolutely no traceable ancestors that were slaves.

Can you tell us how many generations back your ancestors were enslaved?

Originally Posted by the iron horse

And it is still going on.

Something very few goverments in the world seem to care about.

What is the Libertarian Party's solution to this?

[Pearl]

Originally Posted by BVS

This is completely false. There are plenty of people on this planet that have absolutely no traceable ancestors that were slaves.

I wouldn't go that far. Since slavery has been part of human history for many centuries, and the further we all go back in our genealogy, the more ancestors we have, everyone is a descendant of a slave.

But even so, if someone's ancestor was a Roman slave or one in ancient Ireland, that does not mean they should equate themselves with African-Americans. Their plight was more recent and right here in the U.S., so that makes it insulting.

I know you said "traceable ancestors", but iron horse said "all of us". So I was just trying to make sense of what you both said.

[BVS]

Originally Posted by Pearl

I wouldn't go that far. Since slavery has been part of human history for many centuries, and the further we all go back in our genealogy, the more ancestors we have, everyone is a descendant of a slave.

Well then I guess it depends on how we're using the term "ancestor". Most people will use "ancestor" or "ancestry" to define the beginnings of your family name, therefore only going back a certain number of generations. But if one were going to define "ancestor" from the beginning of time then we can all argure that we're all related, we all have ancestors that were kings, queens, slaves, and we all have ancestors that inveneted fire.

[Pearl]

Oh, I get what you're saying. I was just responding to what you said to Iron Horse.

It also looks like you added the part where you asked him how many generations should one go back to find an enslaved ancestor right after I posted my comment. That, or I just didn't see it.

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by Pearl

I wouldn't go that far. Since slavery has been part of human history for many centuries, and the further we all go back in our genealogy, the more ancestors we have, everyone is a descendant of a slave.

I suppose if Mitochondrial Eve was a slave, this would be true. Otherwise, no. Lineage doesn't work that way.
Perhaps you could say we all probably share a common ancestor with a slave, but that's completely different

[Jive Turkey]

Originally Posted by BVS

But if one were going to define "ancestor" from the beginning of time then we can all argure that we're all related, we all have ancestors that were kings, queens, slaves, and we all have ancestors that inveneted fire.

I know you're just being facetious, but even this isn't true. A simple way to disprove the invention of fire ancestry is that there were hundreds of thousands of whatever species of primitive man on Earth at the time one of them invented fire (Probably didn't happen that way, but anyway); he or she wasn't the only one to procreate after that... The majority of us aren't related to that person, if any. Same thing goes for Kings and Queens; the percentage of the procreating population in those times who weren't Kings or Queens is far greater than the percentage that were. A common descendent with a King or Queen? If you go back far enough, of course, but likely so many generations removed that it becomes irrelevant. Not to mention that those families tended to... keep to themselves... when it came to creating descendents

[BVS]

Thanks for proving my point.

[Jive Turkey]

Thanks for completely missing my point and not understanding what 'ancestor' means. I was saying your point is illogical. By your logic, Chimps are ancestors to Humans

[BVS]

Jive, I'm not going round and round with you on this. Please go back a few posts, I'm not defining ancestor this way... I was being illogical on purpose to make a point, apparently you missed that.

[Jive Turkey]

Smack your head all you want, BVS, but your examples you used didn't make any sense. You might as well have said "Well, then you could argue we're all related because dishwasher chocolate lab toilet paper roll". Even throwing out the fact that ancestry doesn't only mean the beginnings of the family name or only going back a few generations, my point was that your example of going back to the "beginning of time" (lets say "the beginning of the species" instead, which is perfectly reasonable and would still constitute an ancestor) STILL doesn't make us all ancestors of kings. In short, you pointed out that Pearl's use of 'ancestry' was incorrect by showing that you don't know how it works either.
Its also funny how you're suddenly not going to go 'round and round' with this when thats been your MO since you got here. Stop projecting.