WEBVTT

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♪ (music) ♪

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Slavery used to look like this,

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then it evolved into this,

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and today it looks like this.

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In fact, there are an estimated
45.8 million people

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living in modern slavery

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across 167 different countries.

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They fall into three general categories:

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children held in the commercial sex trade;

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adults held in the commercial sex trade;

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and any other laborer made to work
through force, fraud, or coercion.

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The trafficking victim often looks
like anybody else at work

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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,

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only to have their passports
confiscated when they arrive.

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However, many slaves work
in their native countries

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or even the cities where they were born.

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According to the The Global Slavery Index,

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these ten countries are home
to the most modern slaves.

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They each suffer from income inequality, 
discrimination, and classism,

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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

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trying to crack down on child labor.

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The country’s many islands are also home

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to tens of thousands of enslaved fishermen

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trafficked from Myanmar, Laos, 
Thailand, and Cambodia.

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Number nine is the
Democratic Republic of Congo.

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20,000 of the DRC’s
more than 870,000 slaves

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live in one of the most
hellish landscapes on the planet,

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a vast ore mine
in the east of the country.

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The terrorist group Boko Haram
gets overshadowed by ISIS,

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although it kills more people.

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When it comes to enslavement,
one of its tactics

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is to give Nigerian entrepreneurs loans

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and 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,

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the “stans,” Ukraine, and North Korea--

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thanks 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 1 million of its people

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to toil in labor camps
and other similarly hopeless situations,

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but it actually loans out some people
to work in neighboring China and Russia,

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then pockets most of their wages.

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This exploitation generates
about $2.3B each year

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for the Kim Jong-Un regime.

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The fifth most enslaved country, 
Uzbekistan,

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is the world’s sixth
largest producer of cotton.

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It has benefited from forced labor,

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as the government puts
more than 1 million people to work

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using threats of debt bondage, 
heavy fines, asset confiscation,

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and police intimidation.

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Slave recruiters in Bangladesh
promise poor families

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that their boys will be given a job,

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only to be enslaved
on a faraway island and beaten

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to clean fish for up to 24 hours straight.

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Often, these fish are exported as cat food
for our pets here in the West.

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

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while searching for firewood.

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Third is Pakistan,

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which has suffered through decades
of conflict, terrorism, and displacement--

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especially along its northwestern border
with Afghanistan.

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Its provinces have not raised
the minimum age of marriage,

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which has allowed the widespread problem
of forced and child weddings to continue.

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Over 250 million Chinese
have migrated within the country

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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"

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as their parents search of work
in the China’s many booming cities.

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Every year, up to 70,000 children
fall into forced begging,

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illegal adoption, and sex 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

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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

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living on less than $2/day.

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It’s unsurprising then
that intergenerational bonded labor,

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forced child labor,

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commercial sexual exploitation, 
forced begging,

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forced recruitment
into nonstate armed groups,

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and forced marriage

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all exist in India.

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The good news is that the government
has already created

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many of the laws necessary
to fight the epidemic,

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but the challenge is effectively
enforcing those laws

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and tracking improvements
and areas of continued need.

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On the flip side, these are the countries

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rated as the ten best
at fighting modern slavery.

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As you can see, no country
has complete eradicated the problem,

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and leaders on this issue--
like the United States--

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can even contribute to it
by consuming products

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that were, at some point
in their supply chain,

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touched by slave labor.

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While it can be hopeless to be a slave,

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the
rest of us can help by raising awareness,

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helping an anti-slavery group,

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or pressuring
government officials around the world to take action.

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Kevin Bales, a professor of contemporary slavery

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and the lead author of the study on which this video is based,

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described to NPR’s
Fresh Air one of the many instances

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where 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,

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where 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,

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is how in Northern India,
more than ten years ago,

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we began to work
with a local organization.

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Those young men who had come to freedom

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began to operate with our support to go into other villages

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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

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and they would meet with people while they were having their
supper

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and they would say, ‘oh, so who do 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

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to an awakening of an understanding of an alternative.

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It’s important to remember that when you’re
in hereditary slavery,

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you have no notion of freedom.

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But when the image and truth of freedom is
awakened in your mind,

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people really do become unstoppable.

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There would come a time when those young men
would say,

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‘you know, I used to be in the same situation.

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I used to live in a village
just like this one,

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but now we have a school
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,

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the women would step forward even though it’s a very male dominated society.

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The women would step forward and say

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we will 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 -

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‘we don’t want our daughters to be raped the way we were raped

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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

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and you can help spread this video

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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.