What comes to your mind when I say the word “slavery”?  A lot of people usually see African American in the 1700’s working their heads off.  Mostly everyone thinks that slavery isn’t going on anymore, just because it’s against the law.  Well, those people might want to think about these questions:  does everyone follow the law?  (No)  Is everyone kind hearted?  (No)  Therefore, is slavery still going on?  Yes.  In fact, there are 27 million slaves today!  Did you know that that’s more than the whole history of the African slave trade?

Slaves are gathered by predators.  Predators are people who go to places and find people that would make good slaves.  Then trick the people into slavery.

There are many types of slavery.  There is Bonded labor, which is when someone is tricked into a loan.  How do they pay off that money?  Either them, or a family member has to work as a slave/slaves under harsh working and living conditions.  To top things off, they don’t even get paid with money!  Their so called “payment” is only food and shelter!  This is why they can’t ever pay off the loans.  This type of slavery can be passed down for generations.

The next type of slavery is Early and Forced Marriage.  Women and/or girls are the slaves in this labor.  They are forced into marriage.  But do you think that they are treated like how you’re supposed to treat your wife?  No, well, not really.  They are given food and basically only what they need to survive on.  But they serve and do things that wives would do.

There is one type of slavery called Forced Labor.  This has to do with people who are illegally recruited by a person, their government, or a political party.  They’re forced into slavery.  You’re probably wondering why they can’t just run away, right?  Well, it isn’t that simple.  The slave owners threaten the salves by bringing up violence or threats like “You’re illegally here, so if you report me, they’ll lock you up.”  Maybe they’ll even say, “You have nowhere to go.  How are you going to survive?”  or “I’ll hurt your family back home if you leave.”

Like I said before, slavery can grow to generations of working.  This is called Slavery by Descent.  The slave is either born into slavery, or some people think that they’d make a good slave.  So, would do they do?  They lure them into slavery.

Trafficking is a type of slave labor that involves moving and/or trading all types of people from one location to another.  The only reason they’re doing this is so they can just trick the person into slavery.

There is one labor that tricks children into working as slaves.  This is Child Labor.  The children work in conditions that can be harmful to them, their health, and everyone around them.  Did you know that slaves can be as young as 5 years old?  70% of the children slaves work in agriculture (which is farming, planting, and growing stuff).  Sometimes, they even plant marijuana!)

Guess what?  Actually, don’t guess, because I’m going to tell you.  When predators are looking for slaves, they usually prefer children!  Why do you think so?  You’ve just got to think about it for a little bit.  One of the reasons is that the slave’s religion states so (but not often).  Plus, like I said before, the person or the person’s family gets tricked.  So they “pay” with slavery (bonded labor).  Children are also better for slavery because they have tiny fingers.  So they work quicker than most adults.  So, who would be better?  The adults, they work slowly and klutzy (no offense) or the children?  Who work quickly and they also work tighter and cleaner too?  Well, of course the answer would be children?

Now that you know why slaves work, let’s talk about where they work.  Slaves work on land.  They can work in houses, as domestic workers (like house cleaning, babysitting, dishes, etc).  Of course, they work in sweatshops in sweatshops (which are places where slaves work and make stuff in horrible conditions).  Outdoor slavery may contain working at brick kilns, mines, and construction.  Sometimes slaves even work at restaurants, in bars, and tourist establishments.