Foreign Policy: A World Enslaved
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4173

I honestly can't believe this is real. Appalling, but true.

With all the recent talk about the decline of big media (eg. Seth Godin's article at http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2009/01/when-newspapers.html), I thought it relevant to point to this piece about the shocking state of world slavery: "For four years, I saw dozens of people enslaved, several of whom traffickers actually offered to sell to me. I did not pay for a human life anywhere. And, with one exception, I always withheld action to save any one person, in the hope that my research would later help to save many more. At times, that still feels like an excuse for cowardice. But the hard work of real emancipation can’t be the burden of a select few." What place does four years worth of investigative journalism have in an internet driven meritocracy? Philanthropic endeavours? Streamlined news journals?Reportage is going to change and it is important we don't lose the power to expose issues like this.

Standing in New York City, you are five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl. He or she can be used for anything, though sex and domestic labor are most common. Before you go, let’s be clear on what you are buying. A slave is a human being forced to work through fraud or threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. Agreed? Good. Most people imagine that slavery died in the 19th century. Since 1817, more than a dozen international conventions have been signed banning the slave trade. Yet, today there are more slaves than at any time in human history.

"Standing in New York City, you are five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl. He or she can be used for anything, though sex and domestic labor are most common. ... The total number of Haitian children in bondage in their own country stands at 300,000."

Standing in New York City, you are five hours away from being able to negotiate the sale, in broad daylight, of a healthy boy or girl. He or she can be used for anything, though sex and domestic labor are most common.

There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history