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Slavery used to look like this, then it evolved
into this, and today it looks like this.

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In fact, there are an estimated 45.8 million
people living in modern slavery across 167

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different countries.

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They fall into three general categories: children
held in the commercial sex trade; adults held

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in the commercial sex trade; and any other
laborer made to work through force, fraud,

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or coercion.

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The trafficking victim often looks like anybody
else at work in a mine, on a farm, in a factory.

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Many are lured by promises of a steady job
in another country, only to have their passports

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confiscated when they arrive.

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However, many slaves work in their native
countries or even the cities where they were

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born.

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According to the The Global Slavery Index
these ten countries are home to the most modern

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slaves.

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They each suffer from income inequality, discrimination
and classism, and entrenched corruption.

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Number ten, Indonesia, produces about 35%
of the world’s palm oil.

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The many small palm plantations present an
immense challenge to inspectors trying to

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crackdown on child labor.

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The country’s many islands are also home
to tens of thousands of enslaved fisherman

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trafficked from Myanmar, Laos, Thailand and
Cambodia.

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Number nine is the Democratic Republic of
Congo. 20,000 of the DRC’s more than 870,000

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slaves live in one of the most hellish landscapes
on the planet, a vast ore mine in the east

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of the country.

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The terrorist group Boko Haram gets overshadowed
by ISIS, although it kills more people.

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When it comes to enslavement, one of its tactics
is to give Nigerian entrepreneurs loans and

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then force them to join their group if they
fail to repay fast enough.

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Seventh is Russia.

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55% of the slaves there work in construction.

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Foreigners are lured mainly from nearby Azerbaijan,
the “stans,” Ukraine, and North Korea—thanks

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to this border on the far eastern edge of
Russia.

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The North Korean government is the world’s
largest single slaveholder.

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Not only does it force more than one million
of its people to toil in labor camps and other

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similarly hopeless situations, but it actually
loans out some people to work in neighboring

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China and Russia, then pockets most of their
wages.

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This exploitation generates about $2.3B each
year for the Kim Jong-un regime.

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The fifth most enslaved country, Uzbekistan,
is the world’s sixth largest producer of

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cotton.

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It has benefited from forced labor, as the
government puts more than 1 million people

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to work using threats of debt bondage, heavy
fines, asset confiscation, and police intimidation.

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Slave recruiters in Bangladesh promise poor
families that their boys will be given a job,

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only to be enslaved on a faraway island and
beaten to clean fish for up to 24 hours straight.

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Often, these fish are exported as cat food
for our pets.

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Sometimes, the boys meet a gruesome death
when they are eaten by tigers while searching

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for firewood.

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Third is Pakistan, which has suffered through
decades of conflict, terrorism, and displacement—especially

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along its northwestern border with Afghanistan.

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It’s provinces have not raised the minimum
age of marriage, which has allowed the widespread

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problem of forced and child weddings to continue.

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Over 250 million Chinese have migrated within
the country to find better opportunities,

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creating the ideal conditions for human trafficking.

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Each year, 58 million children are ‘left
behind’ as their parents search of work

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in the China’s many booming cities.

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Every year, up to 70,000 children fall into
forced begging, illegal adoption, and sex

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slavery.

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And number one is India, which has - by far
- the most victims of modern slavery.

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While economic growth has greatly reduced
the percentage of its citizens living in poverty,

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the country’s sheer size still results in
more than 270 million Indians living on less

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than $2/day.

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It’s unsurprising that intergenerational
bonded labor, forced child labor, commercial

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sexual exploitation, forced begging, forced
recruitment into nonstate armed groups, and

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forced marriage all exist in India.

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The government has already created many of
the laws necessary to fight the epidemic,

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but the challenge is enforcing those laws
and tracking improvements and areas of continued

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need.

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On the flip side, these are the countries
rated as the ten best at fighting modern slavery.

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As you can see, no country has completely
eradicated the problem and leaders on this

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issue — like the United States — can even
contribute to it by consuming products that

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were, at some point in their supply chain,
touched by slave labor.

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While it can be hopeless to be a slave, the
rest of us can help by raising awareness,

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helping an anti-slavery group, or pressuring
government officials around the world to take

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action.

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Kevin Bales, a professor of contemporary slavery
and the lead author of the study on which

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this video is based, described to NPR’s
Fresh Air one of the many instances where

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he’s seen slaves being freed.

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[Fresh Air’s Dave Davies] “Can you share
an example of where that’s worked, where

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locals with the support of the organization
have liberated slaves?”

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[Dr. Kevin Bales] “Oh sure, I’ve got lots
of those in fact.

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But I think the one that I most find rather
thrilling, myself, is how in Northern India,

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more than ten years ago, we began to work
with a local organization.

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Those young men who had come to freedom began
to operate with our support to go into other

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villages where the entire village was enslaved
in hereditary slavery, working in quarries.

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Because they were the same ethnicity, they
would slip in in the evenings and they would

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meet with people while they were having their
supper and they would say, ‘oh, so who do

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you work for around here?

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Oh, you all work for the same person?

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Oh, you’re all working in the mines?

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But where’s the school?

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Oh there is no school.’

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And they’d start this Socratic dialogue
that would lead in time to an awakening of

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an understanding of an alternative.

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It’s important to remember that when you’re
in hereditary slavery, you have no notion

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of freedom.

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But when the image and truth of freedom is
awakened in your mind, people really do become

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unstoppable.

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There would come a time when those young men
would say, ‘you know, I used to be in the

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same situation, I used to live in a village
just like this one, but now we have a school

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and we even have a clinic.

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We have jobs and so forth.’

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And then people would say, ‘how do you get
there?’

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And then, what we found there is that in those
villages, the women would step forward even

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though it’s a very male dominated society,
the women would step forward and say we will

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lead this even if it leads to our deaths.

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Because, they would say - not to me, but to
my women colleagues - ‘we don’t want our

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daughters to be raped the way we were raped
by the slaveholders, by the slavemasters.

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And they would push that along.”

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You can learn more about this study through
the link below and you can help spread this

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video by hitting the like button and sharing
it with your friends.

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Thanks for watching.

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Until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.