Rebecca and I are currently reading the book "Disposable People" by Kevin Bales. The statistics and stories are heart-wrenching. From sexual slavery in Thailand to charcoal workers in Brazil; from generational slavery in Mauritania to farm laborers in the US, slavery IS still "alive and well" in our world today. What makes it so insidious is that unlike the "old slavery", enslavement today doesn't take the form of legal ownership (that doesn't exist ANYWHERE in the world), but via economic conditions (primarily debt bondage). This creates a legal quagmire where the slaveholder, police, and government can all deny its existance. Yet what can you call it other than "slavery" when people are forced under threat of violence to continue to work in conditions where they are unpaid, underfed, denied medical care, and tossed away when they have no further usefulness?

 

The other major change from "old slavery" is that the "slaveholder" has no economic investment in the "slave's" well-being. The cost to "recruit" is minimal; there is a seemingly endless supply of "recruits"  from which to draw . There is virtually no incentive to ensure the long-term viability of today's slave. Like anything else in our world today, they are just "disposed of" when the last bit of "utility" is wrung out of them. THIS is the reality of slavery in the world today.

 

Against this backdrop, Rebecca and I will be attending the first Global Forum on Human Trafficking in Carlsbad, CA on October 8-9. The more we read, the more we realize how closely linked our work at KVI is to the modern abolitionist movement. Of course the women employed by STOPstart are recovering from BEING trafficked, but many of our other producers live in impossible economic situations which make them vulnerable to the lures of the "recruiter". Most of KVI's producers are among those living on the margins of society. Bringing economic empowerment is one of the most powerful means of reducing their vulnerability. This is our mission: creating economic empowerment.

 

We'll have more to share from what we've learned and processed in future newsletters, but we want to encourage YOU to become more informed as well. Here are several resources to assist you: