Slavery in the present

I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to talk about in this evening’s blog post as the reading did not necessarily inspire and new ideas. As an alternative, I wanted to draw the classes’ attention to an issue not yet discussed in class; modern forms of slavery. While it's been extraordinarily eye-opening reading about slavery and the stories of slaves in the past I believe it is also important to recognize that there are still active forms of slavery. Part of what makes these stories so heart wrenching and powerful is that fact that we can't imagine similar circumstances in today's society, when in reality we all tend to live in ignorance of what is actually happening in our own country and worldwide. I wanted to direct the class's attention to an issue discussed in this week's Tartan.

The article begins by stating: “At this very moment there are at least 30 million humans being trafficked around in the world — more than during the height of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to the Not For Sale Campaign. An average slave in the American South in 1850 cost the equivalent of $40,000 in today’s money; today a sex slave costs an average of $90, according to the Free the Slaves project.”

Human trafficking, I’m sure the majority of you are aware of it’s occurrence. For anyone who happened to watch Taken or any other abduction movie, the sex slave industry is a harsh reality. That being said, while most sex slaves are sold in South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, Bangledesh, and Bepal, many American’s believe that the industry is confined to these areas.

Well—they’re wrong.

According to an estimate by the U.S. government, between 14.500 and 17,000 human slaves are trafficked into the United States per year and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children estimates that at least 100,000 American minors are the victims of commercial sexual trafficking and prostitution each year.

The article in the Tartan focuses on a group of Carnegie Mellon students (The Polaris Project) who believe they have gathered evidence that suggest sex slaves are being exploited right here in Pittsburgh. The Polaris Project students will be tabling for their letter-writing campaign this week in the University Center (If interested, refer to www.thetartan.org for more information).

I was able to get the chance to read the article before it’s publication as it went through several rounds of online copy and I was shocked and startled by what I read, and more importantly, the proximity of the issue to my home, my college, and my life.

In class we have all voiced how disturbing and unimaginable the lives of Harriet Jacobs and Fredrick Douglass seem. We have talked about the sexual undertones, the abuse, that lack of regard for the value of human life. That being said, I felt it was extremely important to recognize that some people (including Americans) still live with this disregard for life. Adults and children are still abducted, taken from their home, shipped all over the world to unfamiliar places, raped, and killed.

For me, being reminded of these statistics and truths (which I am sure I have heard at some point in my life, as all of you most likely have) was the most eye-opening experience of my week.