When you think of (modern) slavery, what is the first thing that comes to mind?
The movie “12 Years a Slave”? “Uncle Tom’s Cabin”? “Underground Railroad”?
I bet it is not Tesla cars or your new smartphone.
What if this issue is not just a thing of the past?
What if there were more slaves today than at any other time in documented history forcing as many as 1 in 200 people on the planet to work against their will?
Even though we perhaps may not see it with our own eyes, and it is a problem that is often ignored or forgotten, it doesn’t mean that is not happening all around us.
However unbelievable, slavery does exist today. As a matter of fact, it is still legal in 94 countries in the world (out of 195).
Despite its many forms, one thing is clear – modern day slavery is a grave injustice.
The UN defines slavery as the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.
In our article Why Is Fast Fashion a BIG Problem we have touched on the subject, but in this article we will explore this practice in more depth.
Origins of Modern Slavery
According to historical records, ancient Mesopotamia in the Middle East was the first place on Earth where people were held as slaves.
9,000 years ago the Sumerians kept as slaves captured prisoners of war as slaves.
A few thousand years later, we know that slavery was an accepted part of life in both the Babylonian culture and the ancient Egyptian.
Slavery in China may be traced back at least 4,000 years, to the time of the Shang dynasty.
It is estimated that as much as 5% of the population was enslaved during the Han dynasty period in China.
However, most of us today associate slavery with more recent events.
Most specifically, the forced migration of millions of Africans to the New World during the transatlantic slave trade.
We can see that slavery has been part of human history for a very very long time.
And despite the fact that a significant number of individuals are still carrying the psychological wounds caused by the experiences of their ancestors, most of us believe that the world has progressed to the point where it is now a better place.
Unfortunately, if you are one of those people, you will find that you are actually wrong…
Let’s take a look at some figures to put it into perspective. The transatlantic slave trade lasted over 400 years, ending in the early 19th century.
During that time period, it is believed that somewhere around 12 million people were transported against their will across the Atlantic Ocean.
Although this is a startling number, it is however just about a third of the estimated total number of individuals who are currently being held in slavery; today, there are more than 40 million people affected by slavery.
That’s more than ever before in human history. This number is bigger than the whole population of countries like Canada or Poland.
Of course, it has to be noted that because the overall population was a lot smaller in the past, the percentages might be quite different.
Nevertheless, even one person held in slavery is one person too many.
Most of modern slavery occurs in countries like Burundi, the Central African Republic, North Korea, Eritrea, and Mauritania (it is estimated that up to 20% of that countries population could be living as slaves today).
What is Modern Slavery?
According to AtiSlavery, modern slavery is the severe exploitation of other people for personal or commercial gain.
People can become entrapped making clothes, serving food, picking crops, working in factories, or working in houses as cooks, cleaners or nannies.
Even though from the outside it can look like a normal job, people could be controlled and facing violence or threats.
Many people fall into this oppressive trap simply because they want to escape poverty or uncertainty, better their life, and/or provide for their families.
People like that are being controlled and could be forced into unavoidable debt, have their passport taken away and/or are being threatened with deportation.
Types of Modern Slavery:
- Sex trafficking
- Human (and child) trafficking
- Forced labor of any kind
- Child labor
- Forced or early marriage
- Bonded labor or debt bondage (a person is forced to work for free to pay off a debt)
- Domestic servitude
- Unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers
- Forced begging
Unmasking Modern-Day Slavery: A Closer Look
Some of the largest companies in the world make money off of the global slave trade.
Those are companies that manufacture products that you most likely use and may perhaps be using at this very moment.
It is possible that certain businesses are knowingly and deliberately enslaving individuals just like you against their will just so they could make the most profit that they can.
Here are a few headlines for you to research further if you will:
Is Apple Making Profits of Modern-day Slavery?
Apple has been regarded as the industry’s most innovative and forward-thinking company for a number of years, and millions love their products.
Apple wants you to think that they are a positive influence in the world because of their products and services, and their CEO Tim Cook, has been applauded for his humanitarian work.
Apple has given more than $100 million to social justice initiatives over the last couple of years in an effort to promote equality for everyone.
Now, if you want to know if Apple cares more about people than about making money, it depends on which people you are referring to.
In 2013, it was revealed that one of Apple’s Chinese suppliers, Suyin, was using child labor in one of its facilities.
Apple insisted that the company stop the practice immediately, but an assessment three months later revealed that there were even more children working in the factory than before.
Despite the fact that Apple was fully aware of the issue, the company maintained its partnership with Suyin for another 3 years.
Their justification was that they couldn’t find a different, high-quality source to make the parts in Suyin’s place.
In 2015, Lens Technology was discovered to be one of seven Apple suppliers utilizing forced labor of Uyghur Muslims in China.
Apple refuted these claims saying they had not discovered any proof in their own supply chain.
However, it would seem that the United States government did not necessarily agree with their assessment, as shown by the fact that in the year 2020, Congress adopted the Forced Labor Prevention Act.
Its purpose was to guarantee that no products manufactured in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region using forced labor would be permitted to access the market in the United States.
Apple would be delighted to have these laws passed if they were really certain that no slave labor was used in the production of their goods.
Their behavior, nevertheless, appears to portray a totally different image.
Apple chose not to publicly oppose the law for the most likely reason, which is that doing so would have placed the company in the line of fire.
Instead, it was uncovered that they paid two consulting firms a combined total of more than 90,00 dollars to campaign against the creation of these legislations, probably in hope that the act would be weakened or not even implemented at all.
According to research, Apple has been linked in several instances to what seems to be forced labor across its supply chain.
China’s Foxconn is the main business engaged in the production of iPhones, and it is claimed that up to half a million iPhones are produced in their factories every day, accounting for 80% of world’s supply.
It was discovered in a report that was published in 2020 by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute that Foxconn was complicit in the forced employment of Uyghur Muslims in China.
This included the forced transfer of over 500 workers to their factories, which also included the factories that were responsible for the production of Apple’s products.
Microsoft, BMW, Sony, Samsung, and Volkswagen are some of the other corporations that are named in the research.
Foxconn is still one of Apple’s single biggest suppliers of both parts and labor, and the two companies continue to collaborate to this day.
It is worth noting that in 2015, Apple’s spokesman Josh Rosenstock said that the company has zero tolerance for forced labor.
In addition, when asked about the possibility of slavery occurring anywhere in the company’s supply chain, Tim Cook responded as follows: “Forced labor is abhorrent, and we would not tolerate it in Apple”.
Many of the Chinese firms that supply Apple, and are accused of using forced labor, also supply other companies.
Amazon and Tesla both use components that are manufactured in the same facilities for their respective product lines, and both companies use those components in their final products.
Recently, a class action lawsuit was filed against Apple, Dell, Alphabet, and other companies, accusing them of participating in the abuse of human rights in Africa, namely in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
Solutions to Combat Modern-Day Slavery
As consumers, we want newer models of electronic gadgets, vehicles, and other things nearly as quickly as their producers can produce them.
Furthermore, we anticipate that these items will be reasonably priced.
The many shareholders of these firms usually anticipate that the earnings of these companies would continue to increase from one year to the next.
In the end, all of this results in the creation of a system that promotes raising profits and decreasing expenses at any and all costs possible.
The increasing number of people who are forced to work as slaves is one of these costs.
Slavery is not a thing of the past, and today it is caused by the desire for more material possesions, more power, and of course, more money.
By paying more attention to the origins of the goods we purchase and the products themselves, everyone of us has the ability to contribute to the fight to abolish slavery.
Demand that businesses improve their practices in their supply chains by using your purchasing power to cast a vote.
There is no simple answer to this problem; yet, if each of us takes modest actions, such as purchasing goods from businesses that do not engage in any kind of slavery, we may bring about significant social change.
We can vote with our money by choosing to buy products that are made ethically, without slave labor.
There are many great resources available to help us make informed decisions about the products we buy, including the Fair Trade Certified label.
We as consumers have a lot of power. Let’s use this power to create a world where slavery is no longer tolerated.