Accra, Ghana: These gold miners have just come out of the shaft, their pants soaked from their own sweat. Most had spent all their money coming from the north hoping to strike it rich in legal mines. But legal operations require certifications. When they can't get a job, the men take high-interest loans or join groups of slaves in mines abandoned by legitimate operations.
There are 27 million slaves in the world today: That’s more than double the number of people taken from Africa during the entire transatlantic slave trade. A hundred and fifty years ago, an average agricultural slave cost over three times the average yearly wage of an American worker, about US$50,000 in today’s money. Yet now, entire families can be enslaved for generations over a debt as small as $18. Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it exists all over the world.
–Lisa Kristine, “Slavery Still Exists.” theatlantic.com
You can see more of Lisa’s work at her website, www.lisakristine.com.
Tags: human trafficking, Lisa Kristine, slavery
My 8-year-old daughter, who we are foster-adopting and who is African-American, asked me this morning if (1) there is still slavery (she’s watched Prince of Egypt several times), and (2) she was ever going to have to become a slave. It was so difficult to explain to her that it was illegal, but that it still happens all over the world.