Slavery

[bunn]

Last night on the local news, some person who had 'written a musical about slavery' said 'there are more people in slavery now than at the height of the Atlantic slave trade' and that 'there are slaves in every town and city in the UK'.

Can this possible be true? I know human trafficking exists, and is a terrible thing, but surely this has to be on a much smaller scale, given that it is illegal?

Comments

[sigisgrim.livejournal.com]

I know no figures. However there are a couple of things that might point things in the direction of agreeing with the quoted statement.

1. The world population is much higher now than it was 100-150 years ago. 6:1, 10:1; I don't know but I would guess someting in that reagion, maybe more.

2. Illegal immigrants brought into this country (and other Western nations like France & Germany, etc.) who end up being forced into the sex trade in return for their trasnsport.

Children who are sold by their impoverished parents to child traffickers for a pittance and then sold on to wealthy buyers, often in other countries.

"Servants" of very wealthy "employers" who bring them into Western nations as part of their paid household, but who are unable to quit the job.

Where these occur in the UK their incidence is much, much higher in the larger cities. But I would guess if the known figures are extraporlated up (by whatever method) and then averaged across the number of towns and cities in the country there might be more than one in each.


Yes, I agree that the knowing how to do that extraporlation from the known smaller figures to the quoted ones is somewhat beyond a black art.