MODERN SLAVERY

by David Nuttle

Slavery still exists in the form of horrific child labor, sex trafficking, sweatshops, servitude, and bondage, as well as forced marriages, & government forced labor. The ILO (Intl. Labor Organization) estimated that in 2025 there were not less than 500,000 slaves in each of the following nations: India, China, Pakistan, North Korea, Nigeria, Indonesia, Congo, Russia, & the Philippines. The U. S. is believed to have not less than 150,000 slaves with an increase in numbers due to POTUS Biden's open borders policy. Numbers have increased in PRC (China) due to use of forced labor camps with starvation diets to help eliminate the Chinese Muslims, the Uyghurs.

My first exposure to the modern slave market was in S. Vietnam. The national mafia-type organization, the Binh Xuyen, controlled gambling, prostitution, and was paid by communist forces to import opium, from the Golden Triangle (Burma), and make it available at very low prices for American troops engaged in the Vietnam War. In addition, the Binh Xuyen held a weekly auction, near Saigon, where young teenagers (mostly girls) were sold to the highest bidder. All over SE Asia, families having a survival crisis, not being able to buy any basic essentials, sold their eldest daughter to traveling Binh Xuyen buys. Parents were told their daughters would go to good homes & be treated well to work as maids. In 1960, I soon had discovered prices paid for these young women averaged about US$50.00 each.

In the U. S., most of the slave trafficking is for the sex trade with women being sold to prostitution rings. Children as young as 13 have found serving in bondage doing jobs that few will do; e. g. cleaning a killing floor in a poultry processing plant. Overseas, child slaves are found doing hazardous work in mines or serving as child soldiers. The terrorist group Boko Haram, in Nigeria, like to kidnap young women from girls schools & use them as sex slaves for several months. These girls are then killed and replaced by kidnapping more girls.

Modern slavery abuses acquired salves in dozens of ways. The thousands of young girls, some as young as 10 years of age, forced into early marriages are also abused.

Modern slavery will require extensive intelligence operations to identify slave traders with multi-nation coordination of preventative laws and strong law enforcement to apprehend the slave traders along with rescuing the modern slaves. All borders will also need to be better secured to deter free movement by these parasites on human life.

The life of a slave is one that devalues human life while imposing suffering & cruelty for the slave to benefit the slave owner.