THE EXISTENCE of slavery in the 21st century comes as a shock to many Americans who believe that the institution ended with the Civil War. Although slavery today is not legal, it flourishes.
The international slave trade reaches into every country around the world and involves, at the least, a few million people and, by some estimates, as many as 27 million. It includes the old-fashioned buying, selling and owning of humans as well as many forms of sexual exploitation and "bonded" labor -- in which people are held against their will and forced to work on farms or in factories to pay off obligations that never end.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Thursday March 15, 2007 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 19 Editorial Pages Desk 0 inches; 29 words Type of Material: Correction
Slave trade: An article Tuesday about modern-day slavery said that March 2007 is the 400th anniversary of the ban on the British slave trade. It is the 200th anniversary.
In the so-called advanced countries, the largest category is sex slavery, which is linked to legalized or tolerated prostitution. In the Near East, the largest category is domestic-servitude slavery, fed by a massive migration of young women from South Asia. On the Indian subcontinent, the largest category is bonded-labor slavery of the lowest castes in rice mills, carpet factories and brick kilns. In Uganda and Sri Lanka, the largest category is child-soldier slavery.
Modern slavery is more gender-based than race-based -- most victims are girls. In many instances it is linked to organized crime, and globalization plays a part as well. Except for bonded-labor slavery, rarely does one find a victim in her hometown; she has been trafficked from one region to another or across international borders.
As U.S. ambassador-at-large on modern-day slavery, nothing moved me as much as the meetings I had all over the world with survivors. I did not believe slavery could exist in a democratic country until I met Katya in the Netherlands. Katya had left a failing marriage and a 2-year-old daughter in the Czech Republic when a "friend of the family" suggested that she go to Amsterdam, where she could make money as a waitress. She and other young women were driven across Europe by a Czech trafficker who turned them over to a Dutch trafficker. Katya's passport was seized, and she was driven to a brothel in Amsterdam's red-light district.
When Katya protested, explaining that she came to the Netherlands to work in a restaurant, the traffickers claimed that she owed them 20,000 euros for bringing her across Europe. When she refused to cooperate, she said, the traffickers told her that "you will if you want your daughter at home to live."
Katya succumbed, as have many in Western Europe, Japan and even the United States.
