22 Humans

I  saw the link to Slavery Footprint on my ELA teacher's blog and decided to check it out.  (The link is: slaveryfootprint.org.)  It is a program that tries to spread the  word about modern day slavery.  So many people worked SO hard to kill slavery off, but it's still here.  I'm not talking about picking cotton for rich white southern plantation owners during the 1800's.  What I'm talking about is the idea that people NOW are being forced to work for consumer's needs.  When you buy something that is mass produced, chances are, unless it is a special company making the product, it has been touched by a slave.  Anything from shorts to shrimp to diamonds to cars can and probably employs some sort of slave labor.

The web site gives you two options, you can either pick the "What? I have slaves working for me?" button or the "Take the Survey!" button.  I first read the about page on the site, then took the survey.  There was a huge variety of questions about your lifestyle.  They asked about diet, clothing, sports equipment, electronics, where you live, housing, medicine, age, gender, children or not, and jewelery.  At first I didn't really understand why they were asking about these things, then I began to read the facts beside the questions and I was shocked.  For example, "Bonded labor is used for much of Southeast Asia's shrimping industry, which supplies more shrimp to the U.S. than any other country. Laborers work up to 20-hour days to peel 40 pounds of shrimp. Those who attempt to escape are under constant threat of violence or sexual assault.", this fact was listed next to the diet questions.  The mere thought that people wouldn't get paid to do their work is shocking to me, but the idea that if they tried to escape they could be abused if unbelievable.  It really makes me sick.

22.  That's 22 people forced into labor without their consent.  I have 22 slaves working for me.  At the end of the survey they give you your results with comparisons to the average, extraneous variables, and other extra tidbits of information.  I still can't believe I only have 3 people under the average "working for me".  I felt awful when I read my results.  In the future I will be much more cautious about how I conduct my life and my consumption of stuff that could be produced by slaves.

The most interesting part to me is the fact that if you told me this was something that happened in the past I would be angry and shocked, but my response in the end would be, "It was different back then."  The problem is that when we say that slavery happened because "It was different back then,", it's ridiculous because it still happens now.