Ninety Bucks
That’s the average cost of a human life in today’s slave market. TODAY’s slave market. People tend to think that since slavery is illegal in every country in the world, that illegality must have made it go away. In fact, there are 27 million slaves RIGHT NOW, and on average, every 36 minutes, a slave is trafficked into the United States.
I’m at a loss as to how to reconcile my life with a world where slavery still exists. My world view didn’t include this except in past tense–as a history lesson. And I’m not OK with it.
Join me in getting involved to stop slavery. FreetheSlaves.net will help you educate yourself and those around you, and open your eyes to ways to step up and take a stand. Singer Jason Mraz just spent 5 days in Ghana to find out more.
Mraz spent his time in the country traveling rescue shelters for slaves – as well as Challenging Heights, a school in Winneba founded by a former child slave, where many students are former slaves.
According to Free the Slaves: “We don’t waste time debating which kind of slavery is worse — brick kilns or carpet looms, sex or domestic, new or old — it’s all horrible. Slavery is a dark slash across the heart of all humanity. We believe there are no easy answers to eradicating slavery. But there are answers from the people who are enslaved and those helping them to freedom. There is no single path to liberation – the paths are many – we will tread them all before our job is done.”
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Change by Doing 
Posted by Kevin Bales on June 16, 2010 at 11:53 AM
Dear Andrew,
Thanks for a great posting. I understand how coming to grips with the size of modern slavery can leave you feeling overwhelmed and it like the way you view the world is under attack. But there’s an interesting paradox about the 27 million slaves in the world – yes, it is a huge number, the largest ever in human history, but it is also the smallest fraction of the human population to ever be in slavery. Likewise, the amount of money slaves pump into the world economy is big, around $50 billion a year, but it is also the smallest fraction of the global economy to ever be represented by slave labor.
The truth is that slavery has been pushed to the edge of its own extinction and working together we can tip it over the brink. There’s a law against slavery in every country, and more and more people are united in wanting to end it. Thank you for sharing our website. I hope you’ll have a look at our book on how we can bring slavery to an end in 25 years. It’s called: Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves.
There are also some very easy ways that you can help to end slavery. First, keep doing exactly what you’re doing: spread the word! Tell your family, friends and coworkers that slavery still exists today and more importantly, that we can end it. To get people in your local community as excited about ending modern slavery as you are, think about holding an event to raise awareness. Organize a concert, a film showing, a fundraiser or anything you can think of to get the word out!
Secondly, be conscious of the presence of slavery in your daily life. The next time you visit the grocery store, the department store, the electronics store, think about why these prices are so low. Could slave labor have contributed to the production of these goods? Sites such as free2work.org list products that are guaranteed to be free of slave labor, and give big-name companies report cards on how they are doing in scrubbing slave labor out of their supply chain.
Thank you for your support and enthusiasm in the fight against slavery. With your help, and the help of millions like you, we can end slavery. Forever.
All best wishes,
Kevin Bales
President/Co-founder, Free the Slaves