Kevin Bales

new slavery in the global economy

Disposable people

Ron Soodalter

"Once again, Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter make us confront a tragic reality--there are as many as 27 million people trapped in modern slavery worldwide. In this book, we hear the voices of survivors and those who are fighting every day for freedom."--Congressman John Conyers, Jr., Chair of the House Judiciary Committee "Most Americans believe that slavery in our country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. They are wrong. As Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter document in this excellent volume, human bondage is a reality for thousands of children, women and men living in the United States. "The Slave Next Door" exposes slavery in today's America in all its forms, and sounds a call to arms to government, corporations, and private citizens alike."--Kerry Kennedy, Founder, Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights "This is a book to make you angry. From Florida field workers who pick some of the fruits and vegetables we eat to prisoners in China who make desk lamps we can buy at Wal-Mart, Bales and Soodalter show us the manifold ways that unfree labor is woven into the American economy. And, most important, they show us what we can do to stop it."--Adam Hochschild, author of "Bury the Chains" and "King Leopold's Ghost"

Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today

The Slave Next Door

For readers of such crusading works of nonfiction as Katherine Boo’s Beyond the Beautiful Forevers and Tracy Kidder’s Mountains Beyond Mountains comes a powerful and captivating examination of two entwined global crises: environmental destruction and human trafficking—and an inspiring, bold plan for how we can solve them. A leading expert on modern-day slavery, Kevin Bales has traveled to some of the world’s most dangerous places documenting and battling human trafficking. In the course of his reporting, Bales began to notice a pattern emerging: Where slavery existed, so did massive, unchecked environmental destruction. But why? Bales set off to find the answer in a fascinating and moving journey that took him into the lives of modern-day slaves and along a supply chain that leads directly to the cellphones in our pockets. What he discovered is that even as it destroys individuals, families, and communities, new forms of slavery that proliferate in the world’s lawless zones also pose a grave threat to the environment. Simply put, modern-day slavery is destroying the planet. The product of seven years of travel and research, Blood and Earth brings us dramatic stories from the world’s most beautiful and tragic places, the environmental and human-rights hotspots where this crisis is concentrated. But it also tells the stories of some of the most common products we all consume—from computers to shrimp to jewelry—whose origins are found in these same places. Blood and Earth calls on us to recognize the grievous harm we have done to one another, put an end to it, and recommit to repairing the world. This is a clear-eyed and inspiring book that suggests how we can begin the work of healing humanity and the planet we share. Praise for Blood and Earth “A heart-wrenching narrative . . . Weaving together interviews, history, and statistics, the author shines a light on how the poverty, chaos, wars, and government corruption create the perfect storm where slavery flourishes and environmental destruction follows. . . . A clear-eyed account of man’s inhumanity to man and Earth. Read it to get informed, and then take action.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) “[An] exposé of the global economy’s ‘deadly dance’ between slavery and environmental disaster . . . Based on extensive travels through eastern Congo’s mineral mines, Bangladeshi fisheries, Ghanian gold mines, and Brazilian forests, Bales reveals the appalling truth in graphic detail. . . . Readers will be deeply disturbed to learn how the links connecting slavery, environmental issues, and modern convenience are forged.”—Publishers Weekly “This well-researched and vivid book studies the connection between slavery and environmental destruction, and what it will take to end both.”—Shelf Awareness (starred review) “This is a remarkable book, demonstrating once more the deep links between the ongoing degradation of the planet and the ongoing degradation of its most vulnerable people. It’s a bracing reminder that a mentality that allows throwaway people also allows a throwaway earth.”—Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

Modern Slavery, Ecocide, and the Secret to Saving the World

Blood and Earth

Zoe Trodd

Contains 95 narratives by slaves and former slaves from around the globe that movingly and eloquently chronicle the horrors of contemporary slavery, the process of becoming free, and the challenges faced by former slaves as they build a life in freedom.

Personal Stories by Today's Slaves

To Plead Our Own Cause

Norman Jean Roy

In January 2008, Roy went to Cambodia to spearhead Traffik, a project that would expose the grave reality of women trapped in the sex industry. Inspired by Somaly Mam, a former sex-slave who worked at reintegrating these women back into society, Roy began the emotionally taxing work of photographing the victims. With access to both the brothels and rehabilitation centres, Roy captured the powerful stories of rape, girls being sold by their mothers, bartered for, exchanged and sold across borders. These images attempt to give them a voice.

Traffik

Slavery continues as a blight on the human world, with an estimated 27 million people around the world in bondage. Kevin Bales undertakes a discussion of the causes of enslavement & the socio-economic factors that sustain slavery in the 21st century.

A Reader

Understanding Global Slavery

In his 1999 book, Disposable People, Kevin Bales brought to light the shocking fact of modern slavery and described how, nearly two hundred years after the slave trade was abolished (legal slavery would have to wait another fifty years), global slavery stubbornly persists. In Ending Slavery, Bales again grapples with the struggle to end this ancient evil and presents the ideas and insights that can finally lead to slavery's extinction. Recalling his own involvement in the antislavery movement, he recounts a personal journey in search of the solution and explains how governments and citizens can build a world without slavery.

How We Free Today’s Slaves

Ending Slavery

Tiago Muniz Cavalcanti

Leonardo Sakamoto

André Esposito Roston

Fabiola Mieres

Mike Dottridge

Natália Suzuki

Raissa Roussenq Alves

Renato Bignami

Ricardo Rezende Figueira

Siobhán McGrath

Xavier Plassat

A escravidão foi abolida no Brasil no século XIX. No entanto, todo ano, pessoas são traficadas, submetidas a condições desumanas de serviço e impedidas de romper a relação com o empregador. Não raro, sofrem ameaças que vão de torturas psicológicas a espancamentos e assassinatos. Entre 1995 e setembro de 2019, mais de 54 mil pessoas foram encontradas em regime de escravidão em fazendas de gado, soja, algodão, café, laranja, batata e cana-de-açúcar, mas também em carvoarias, canteiros de obras, oficinas de costura, bordéis, entre outras unidades produtivas no Brasil. Organizado pelo jornalista e conselheiro da ONU Leonardo Sakamoto, este livro mostra o que é o trabalho escravo contemporâneo, como ele se insere no Brasil e no mundo, o que tem sido feito para erradicá-lo e por que tem sido tão difícil combatê-lo. Uma obra necessária, pois, enquanto qualquer ser humano for vítima de trabalho escravo, a humanidade não será, de fato, livre.

Escravidão Contemporânea

Becky Cornell

Discusses worldwide modern slavery and its effects, including the types of modern slavery, its relationship with globalization, and how the world can end slavery.

Slavery Today

I nuovi schiavi. La merce umana nell'economia globale

Boys strapped to carpet looms in India, women trafficked into sex slavery across Europe, children born into bondage in Mauritania, and migrants imprisoned at gunpoint in the United States are just a few of the many forms slavery takes in the twenty-first century. There are twenty-seven million slaves alive today, more than at any point in history, and they are found on every continent in the world except Antarctica. To Plead Our Own Cause contains ninety-five narratives by slaves and former slaves from around the globe. Told in the words of slaves themselves, the narratives movingly and eloquently chronicle the horrors of contemporary slavery, the process of becoming free, and the challenges faced by former slaves as they build a life in freedom. An editors' introduction lays out the historical, economic, and political background to modern slavery, the literary tradition of the slave narrative, and a variety of ways we can all help end slavery today. Halting the contemporary slave trade is one of the great human-rights issues of our time. But just as slavery is not over, neither is the will to achieve freedom, "plead" the cause of liberation, and advocate abolition. Putting the slave's voice back at the heart of the abolitionist movement, To Plead Our Own Cause gives occasion for both action and hope.

la merce umana nell'economia globale

I nuovi schiavi

Looks at the lives of people living as slaves today and proposes guidelines to rid the world of slavery.

Kevin Bales

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