As of today, a plethora of people think slavery is eradicated. While that statement is true the International Labor Organization (ILO) states that there are approximately 20.9 million men, women, and children around the world currently enslaved. Generally speaking, some people will think that statement to be false. The reason is because majority of people think slavery as the Trans-Atlantic Slavery Trade. It captured enormous amount of Africans and transported them to the West Indies and United States to work on plantations. Even though slavery was abolished in the 19th century, it still exists today but in different types of forms.

In 1619, African slaves were brought to North America to work in the colony Jamestown, Virginia. The British, who brought the slaves over, wanted the Africans to aid in the production of money-making crops most notably, tobacco and cotton. Following that in the 17th and 18th century slavery was practiced throughout the entire nation. Slaves became the backbone of this country. When the 19th century came rolling around so did America expansion westward. That being said it provoked an abolished movement that lead to a bloody Civil War (1861-1865) between the North of United States and South of United States. Even though, the Union defeated the rebels, the legacy of slavery does influence America culture today.

According to the ILO, slavery in the 21st century is defined as people being sold like/as objects and/or forced to work for little or no pay for mercy from their employer’s.
Even though, there are multiple characteristics that distinguish slavery from human rights violation, nonetheless a person only needs one human being to be present for slavery to exist. Someone is enslaved when the person is forced to do work because mental or physical threat is present. Another is when a person dehumanizes another person by treating them as a commodity or selling them as “property”. Unfortunately, countries do practice this illegally even though there are laws that annihilate it. Some laws are The Slavery Convention (1926); it states “ “Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised,”” (Anti-Slavery 4). The second law enforced by the ILO. It defines forced labor as ““All work or service that is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily,”’(Anti-Slavery 4). Even though, these are implemented into everyday society slavery does still occur.

Slavery exists in many different forms. One type of slavery is bondage labor. Bondage labor is a very popular method to enslaved people. The way a person becomes a bonded laborer is when a person, the master, threatens labor from the labore to repay back his or her loan. Then the larbore becomes tricked into thinking he or she can pay off the debt. That being mention, it is impossible for the debt to be paid off because the value of their work becomes greater than the original amount that was borrowed. Bonded labor occurs all throughout the world but dominantly in South East Asia. For example, Punjab, a region in India, hundred of men and women are forced to work as bonded laborers in the quarries and klins. The bonded labors will receive little pay as little as no pay making the loan impossible to pay back.

Furthermore, child enslavement is another form of modern day slavery. In 2002 there were at least 8.4 million children enslaved. Those children were trafficked, debt bondage or forced into labor. Different forms of forced labor are recruitment for armed conflict like the Lord Resistance Army (LRA), prostitution, and child pornography. In essence, this is a big problem. In 2010, there were approximately 215 million child laborers that were between the ages 5 and 17. Out of those 215 million child laborers there was 115 million children that worked in the worst forms of child labor according to ILO.
Another type of slavery is forced labor. It affects men, women, and children around the world to be illegally recruited by individuals, businesses or governments and forced to do work or services against their own will. The reason why the labore cannot say no is because they are usually under some type of threat. This is a big problem today because a great deal of industries practice this. Some industries are the following: agriculture, domestic work, construction, mining, quarrying, manufacturing, prostitution, sexual exploitation, market trading and illegal activities. So, according to ILO in 2011 it estimates at least there were 20.9 million people who were forced worldwide. That being said three out of 1,000 people are suffering forced labor. Although, 74% of 20.9 million (15.4) were likely to be adults that fall in the age groups of 18 years and an above. Unlike children, it was at least 5.5 million children were in forced labor. That being said, the vast majority of cases are individuals that want to make a profit from exploiting other people, for example the government. The government recruits people to join their military service and in return nothing except threats and affronts for example Burman, North Korea and China. Mentioning that, there is forced labor all over the world it just more dominant in Asia and Pacific area according to the ILO.

In brief, according to the rephrased proverb “history repeats itself,” stated by Rufus Historie means that slavery will be repeated once again but in a different formation. That formation may vary. Even though, modern day slavery has some same characteristics as human right violations. To reiterate what I said the difference is you need one person to exist instead plethora amount of people to be considered slavery. Therefore, slavery still exist today, and it is a major problem that needs to be corrected.