Faces of Slavery from David Hepburn on Vimeo.
Video appears on the website of NotForSaleCampaign.org. This organization is attempting to find solutions to modern-day slavery. If you want to know more and take a pro-active role in reducing human trafficking, then this is a good place to start.
Americans are rightfully ashamed of our own history in the slave trade, and of course there are many who will never let us forget and move forward. Indeed, some have made an industry, others a religion, out of racially dividing America.
However, for those who only want to focus on slavery in America, I would like to direct your attention to an article by Howard Dodson titled Slavery in the Twenty-First Century. Dodson is an African-American "lecturer, educator and consultant, is Chief of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of The New York Public Library and a specialist in African-American history. He is a former member of the President’s Commission on the National Museum of African American History and Culture and serves on the Scientific and Technical Committee of the UNESCO Slave Route project." Dodson attempts to raise awareness, and he calls his kinsmen to action [emphasis mine]:
The slave trade is back in full force. This modern slave trade, however, is not limited to just young Africans; women and children are also being enslaved in almost every continent. It is estimated that there are over 27 million enslaved persons worldwide, more than double the number of those who were deported in the 400-year history of the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas. What is remarkable is that this unprecedented trafficking largely goes unnoticed. The 27 million victims of the modern slave trade are more invisible to the world’s eye than were the 10 million to 12 million Africans who were forcibly sent to the Americas during the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. How do we account for this fact in this age of media and communications overload and transparency?
Since varying forms of modern slavery exist in every society and major community worldwide, persons who would become twenty-first-century abolitionists are obliged to call upon Governments, religious bodies and citizens to launch investigations and convene hearings on the status of slavery and slave trafficking. The existence of millions of enslaved persons around the world challenges us to create a global abolitionist movement. Among the first to join should be those who benefited from the successful movements that ended the transatlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas. I, for one, have signed up.
