1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,470
♪ (music) ♪

2
00:00:01,470 --> 00:00:03,259
Slavery used to look like this,

3
00:00:03,259 --> 00:00:04,774
then it evolved into this,

4
00:00:04,774 --> 00:00:07,057
and today it looks like this.

5
00:00:07,620 --> 00:00:11,156
In fact, there are an estimated
45.8 million people

6
00:00:11,156 --> 00:00:12,470
living in modern slavery

7
00:00:12,470 --> 00:00:15,292
across 167 different countries.

8
00:00:15,292 --> 00:00:17,563
They fall into three general categories:

9
00:00:17,563 --> 00:00:19,566
children held in the commercial sex trade;

10
00:00:19,566 --> 00:00:21,478
adults held in the commercial sex trade;

11
00:00:21,478 --> 00:00:25,952
and any other laborer made to work
through force, fraud, or coercion.

12
00:00:26,529 --> 00:00:30,062
The trafficking victim often looks
like anybody else at work

13
00:00:30,062 --> 00:00:32,513
in a mine, on a farm, in a factory.

14
00:00:32,837 --> 00:00:36,088
Many are lured by promises
of a steady job in another country,

15
00:00:36,088 --> 00:00:39,110
only to have their passports
confiscated when they arrive.

16
00:00:39,110 --> 00:00:42,172
However, many slaves work
in their native countries

17
00:00:42,172 --> 00:00:44,301
or even the cities where they were born.

18
00:00:44,764 --> 00:00:46,761
According to the The Global Slavery Index,

19
00:00:46,761 --> 00:00:49,858
these ten countries are home
to the most modern slaves.

20
00:00:49,858 --> 00:00:53,438
They each suffer from income inequality, 
discrimination, and classism,

21
00:00:53,438 --> 00:00:55,173
and entrenched corruption.

22
00:00:55,608 --> 00:01:00,570
Number ten, Indonesia, produces
about 35% of the world’s palm oil.

23
00:01:00,570 --> 00:01:04,509
The many small palm plantations
present an immense challenge to inspectors

24
00:01:04,509 --> 00:01:06,905
trying to crack down on child labor.

25
00:01:06,905 --> 00:01:08,810
The country’s many islands are also home

26
00:01:08,810 --> 00:01:11,027
to tens of thousands of enslaved fishermen

27
00:01:11,027 --> 00:01:14,172
trafficked from Myanmar, Laos, 
Thailand, and Cambodia.

28
00:01:14,927 --> 00:01:17,487
Number nine is the
Democratic Republic of Congo.

29
00:01:17,487 --> 00:01:21,635
20,000 of the DRC’s
more than 870,000 slaves

30
00:01:21,635 --> 00:01:24,655
live in one of the most
hellish landscapes on the planet,

31
00:01:24,655 --> 00:01:27,928
a vast ore mine
in the east of the country.

32
00:01:27,928 --> 00:01:31,105
The terrorist group Boko Haram
gets overshadowed by ISIS,

33
00:01:31,105 --> 00:01:33,203
although it kills more people.

34
00:01:33,203 --> 00:01:35,187
When it comes to enslavement,
one of its tactics

35
00:01:35,187 --> 00:01:37,816
is to give Nigerian entrepreneurs loans

36
00:01:37,816 --> 00:01:42,036
and then force them to join their group 
if they fail to repay fast enough.

37
00:01:42,781 --> 00:01:43,880
Seventh is Russia.

38
00:01:43,880 --> 00:01:46,923
55% of the slaves there
work in construction.

39
00:01:47,119 --> 00:01:50,274
Foreigners are lured
mainly from nearby Azerbaijan,

40
00:01:50,274 --> 00:01:53,241
the “stans,” Ukraine, and North Korea--

41
00:01:53,241 --> 00:01:56,267
thanks to this border
on the far eastern edge of Russia.

42
00:01:56,980 --> 00:02:01,050
The North Korean government
is the world’s largest single slaveholder.

43
00:02:01,050 --> 00:02:03,843
Not only does it force
more than 1 million of its people

44
00:02:03,843 --> 00:02:08,010
to toil in labor camps
and other similarly hopeless situations,

45
00:02:08,010 --> 00:02:12,175
but it actually loans out some people
to work in neighboring China and Russia,

46
00:02:12,350 --> 00:02:14,639
then pockets most of their wages.

47
00:02:14,639 --> 00:02:18,242
This exploitation generates
about $2.3B each year

48
00:02:18,242 --> 00:02:20,007
for the Kim Jong-Un regime.

49
00:02:20,760 --> 00:02:23,397
The fifth most enslaved country, 
Uzbekistan,

50
00:02:23,397 --> 00:02:26,179
is the world’s sixth
largest producer of cotton.

51
00:02:26,179 --> 00:02:28,046
It has benefited from forced labor,

52
00:02:28,046 --> 00:02:30,730
as the government puts
more than 1 million people to work

53
00:02:30,730 --> 00:02:35,359
using threats of debt bondage, 
heavy fines, asset confiscation,

54
00:02:35,359 --> 00:02:37,058
and police intimidation.

55
00:02:37,721 --> 00:02:40,609
Slave recruiters in Bangladesh
promise poor families

56
00:02:40,609 --> 00:02:42,709
that their boys will be given a job,

57
00:02:42,709 --> 00:02:45,749
only to be enslaved
on a faraway island and beaten

58
00:02:45,749 --> 00:02:48,505
to clean fish for up to 24 hours straight.

59
00:02:48,790 --> 00:02:53,384
Often, these fish are exported as cat food
for our pets here in the West.

60
00:02:53,384 --> 00:02:57,697
Sometimes, the boys meet a gruesome death
when they are eaten by tigers

61
00:02:57,697 --> 00:02:59,530
while searching for firewood.

62
00:03:00,370 --> 00:03:01,699
Third is Pakistan,

63
00:03:01,699 --> 00:03:05,757
which has suffered through decades
of conflict, terrorism, and displacement--

64
00:03:05,757 --> 00:03:08,912
especially along its northwestern border
with Afghanistan.

65
00:03:08,912 --> 00:03:12,232
Its provinces have not raised
the minimum age of marriage,

66
00:03:12,232 --> 00:03:16,641
which has allowed the widespread problem
of forced and child weddings to continue.

67
00:03:17,313 --> 00:03:21,359
Over 250 million Chinese
have migrated within the country

68
00:03:21,359 --> 00:03:23,062
to find better opportunities,

69
00:03:23,244 --> 00:03:26,317
creating the ideal conditions
for human trafficking.

70
00:03:26,317 --> 00:03:29,170
Each year, 58 million children
are "left behind"

71
00:03:29,170 --> 00:03:32,961
as their parents search of work
in the China’s many booming cities.

72
00:03:33,494 --> 00:03:37,432
Every year, up to 70,000 children
fall into forced begging,

73
00:03:37,432 --> 00:03:40,000
illegal adoption, and sex slavery.

74
00:03:40,990 --> 00:03:45,216
And number one is India, which has by far
the most victims of modern slavery.

75
00:03:45,680 --> 00:03:47,655
While economic growth has greatly reduced

76
00:03:47,655 --> 00:03:50,020
the percentage of its citizens
living in poverty,

77
00:03:50,020 --> 00:03:55,195
the country’s sheer size still results
in more than 270 million Indians

78
00:03:55,195 --> 00:03:57,777
living on less than $2/day.

79
00:03:57,777 --> 00:04:01,009
It’s unsurprising then
that intergenerational bonded labor,

80
00:04:01,009 --> 00:04:02,200
forced child labor,

81
00:04:02,200 --> 00:04:05,086
commercial sexual exploitation, 
forced begging,

82
00:04:05,086 --> 00:04:07,633
forced recruitment
into nonstate armed groups,

83
00:04:07,633 --> 00:04:09,176
and forced marriage

84
00:04:09,176 --> 00:04:10,819
all exist in India.

85
00:04:11,237 --> 00:04:13,361
The good news is that the government
has already created

86
00:04:13,361 --> 00:04:16,124
many of the laws necessary
to fight the epidemic,

87
00:04:16,124 --> 00:04:18,725
but the challenge is effectively
enforcing those laws

88
00:04:18,725 --> 00:04:22,423
and tracking improvements
and areas of continued need.

89
00:04:22,891 --> 00:04:24,768
On the flip side, these are the countries

90
00:04:24,768 --> 00:04:27,368
rated as the ten best
at fighting modern slavery.

91
00:04:27,710 --> 00:04:31,356
As you can see, no country
has complete eradicated the problem,

92
00:04:31,356 --> 00:04:34,146
and leaders on this issue--
like the United States--

93
00:04:34,146 --> 00:04:36,897
can even contribute to it
by consuming products

94
00:04:36,897 --> 00:04:40,130
that were, at some point
in their supply chain,

95
00:04:40,130 --> 00:04:41,947
touched by slave labor.

96
00:04:42,446 --> 00:04:44,476
While it can be hopeless to be a slave,

97
00:04:44,476 --> 00:04:46,953
the rest of us can help
by raising awareness,

98
00:04:46,953 --> 00:04:48,575
helping an anti-slavery group,

99
00:04:48,575 --> 00:04:52,094
or pressuring government officials
around the world to take action.

100
00:04:52,450 --> 00:04:54,758
Kevin Bales, a professor
of contemporary slavery

101
00:04:54,758 --> 00:04:58,096
and the lead author of the study
on which this video is based,

102
00:04:58,096 --> 00:04:59,676
described to NPR’s Fresh Air

103
00:04:59,676 --> 00:05:03,340
one of the many instances
where he’s seen slaves being freed.

104
00:05:04,384 --> 00:05:07,147
(Dave Davies) “Can you share
an example of where that’s worked,

105
00:05:07,147 --> 00:05:09,988
where locals with the support
of the organization

106
00:05:09,988 --> 00:05:11,584
have liberated slaves?”

107
00:05:11,584 --> 00:05:13,940
(Dr. Kevin Bales) “Oh, sure.
I’ve got lots of those, in fact.

108
00:05:13,940 --> 00:05:19,423
But I think the one that I most find
rather thrilling, myself,

109
00:05:19,423 --> 00:05:22,412
is how in Northern India,
more than ten years ago,

110
00:05:22,412 --> 00:05:24,997
we began to work
with a local organization.

111
00:05:24,997 --> 00:05:27,579
Those young men who had come to freedom

112
00:05:27,579 --> 00:05:30,934
began to operate with our support
to go into other villages

113
00:05:30,934 --> 00:05:35,630
where the entire village was enslaved
in hereditary slavery, working in quarries.

114
00:05:35,630 --> 00:05:39,470
Because they were the same ethnicity, they
would slip in in the evenings

115
00:05:39,470 --> 00:05:44,000
and they would meet with people while they were having their
supper

116
00:05:44,000 --> 00:05:45,010
and they would say, ‘oh, so who do you work for around here?

117
00:05:45,010 --> 00:05:46,550
Oh, you all work for the same person?

118
00:05:46,550 --> 00:05:48,630
Oh, you’re all working in the mines?

119
00:05:48,630 --> 00:05:50,180
But where’s the school?

120
00:05:50,180 --> 00:05:51,700
Oh, there is no school.’

121
00:05:51,700 --> 00:05:59,110
And they’d start this Socratic dialogue
that would lead in time

122
00:05:59,110 --> 00:06:01,190
to an awakening of an understanding of an alternative.

123
00:06:01,190 --> 00:06:05,539
It’s important to remember that when you’re
in hereditary slavery,

124
00:06:05,539 --> 00:06:06,539
you have no notion of freedom.

125
00:06:06,539 --> 00:06:13,310
But when the image and truth of freedom is
awakened in your mind,

126
00:06:13,310 --> 00:06:14,310
people really do become unstoppable.

127
00:06:14,310 --> 00:06:16,730
There would come a time when those young men
would say,

128
00:06:16,730 --> 00:06:19,150
‘you know, I used to be in the same situation.

129
00:06:19,150 --> 00:06:23,000
I used to live in a village
just like this one,

130
00:06:23,000 --> 00:06:24,850
but now we have a school
and we even have a clinic.

131
00:06:24,850 --> 00:06:26,520
We have jobs and so forth.’

132
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,860
And then people would say, ‘how do you get
there?’

133
00:06:28,860 --> 00:06:31,320
And then, what we found there is that in those
villages,

134
00:06:31,320 --> 00:06:33,780
the women would step forward even though it’s a very male dominated society.

135
00:06:33,780 --> 00:06:38,350
The women would step forward and say

136
00:06:38,350 --> 00:06:41,880
we will lead this even if it leads to our deaths.

137
00:06:41,880 --> 00:06:46,770
Because, they would say - not to me, but to
my women colleagues -

138
00:06:46,770 --> 00:06:49,014
‘we don’t want our daughters to be raped the way we were raped

139
00:06:49,014 --> 00:06:51,259
by the slaveholders, by the slavemasters.

140
00:06:51,259 --> 00:06:52,930
And they would push that along.”

141
00:06:52,930 --> 00:06:54,655
You can learn more about this study through
the link below

142
00:06:54,655 --> 00:06:56,380
and you can help spread this video

143
00:06:56,380 --> 00:06:59,440
by hitting the like button and sharing
it with your friends.

144
00:06:59,440 --> 00:07:00,620
Thanks for watching.

145
00:07:00,620 --> 00:07:03,530
Until next time, for TDC, I’m Bryce Plank.