THE STORY WITH SLAVERY, by Paul Glynn- Transition Year Student

Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 4

According to the Universal Declaration of Human rights, slavery in all its forms is forbidden, and no one has the right to have to forcedly serve another person. Despite this, slavery is still a continued practice in many forms in parts of the world today. Bonded labour, human trafficking and the use of child soldiers are carried out both in places where poverty and poor standards of living are common, and places where you might not expect to find such violations of rights.
India is home to more slaves than any other country in the world. It doesn’t seem surprising, seeing as India is home to over one billion people – a quarter of them living on less than $1.25 a day. Many of these slaves are trapped in bonded labour – a type of modern slavery, also known as debt bonding, which basically involves the slave being employed for an amount of time to pay off a debt. Owners of bonded slaves are often corrupt – they take them in, claiming that they have major debt to pay off, and then keep them under their control for a very long time – they will still be ‘paying off their debt’. Bonded labour is the most common form of slavery in the world today – however, it is also one of the least publicized forms.
Not all Indian slaves stay in India, though – they can be smuggled to countries anywhere in the world through illegal trafficking. Human trafficking is a form of modern slavery, and is one of the most common forms in the developed world. It generally involves people from developing countries being smuggled into a more developed country – the smuggled person is usually under the impression that they are going to get a good job and quality of life in their new home country through an ‘agency’, but what often waits for them on the other side of the border can range from intensive labour and debt bondage to prostitution. Both adults and children are tricked into such conditions through traffickers, who claim to have a paying job for them. Hundreds of people from a number of impoverished areas, mostly Eastern Europe, Africa and Asia, are trafficked into Ireland and the UK every year. Women and girls in particular can be at a risk of being tricked into sex slavery through the human trafficking network.
Slavery in any form is a sad, cruel practice, and despite its prevalence in impoverished areas, steps can – and should – be taken to help stop it. There are many ways to do this – you can boycott products that involve poor workers’ conditions, you can write letters to governments to find out more about their policies on slavery – you could even start a campaign in your school, highlighting the injustices caused by slavery. The right to freedom is fundamental, and everyone has the right to be independent from captivity – whether they are prisoners of conscience, protesters and activists, or slaves and forced labourers.