Modern Day Slavery In The 1800s

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As Abraham Lincoln once said, “Those who deny freedom from others, deserve it not for themselves.” However, his statement was directed to the slavery that took place in the 1800s. That slavery involved African Americans that did not have any say in whether they would work or not. They were born into slavery, and they were sold from slave owner to slave owner. This is referred to as olden-day slavery. People today seem oblivious to the fact that slavery still exists today just because the way slavery used to be is not common anymore, just in racial or religious parts of Africa (Meyer, page 8). Modern-day slavery, however, is considered to be so secretive and so “under the radar” that most first-world countries have no idea what is going on …show more content…

Today, Americans seem to believe that olden-day slavery is the only possible form of slavery, but they do not see the horrors that go behind all the different types of modern-day slavery around the world. The most common form of slavery today is called debt-bondage, or bonded labor (Meyer, pg. 9). People who are in desperate need of money look for people who can help pay off their debt. Workers receive the pay in the advance, and then do not know how much work they will have to do in order to pay off their debt; therefore, they can never get free of their debt (Meyer, pg …show more content…

They can have the workers make their product for way less than what it is actually worth. Sweatshops also make products much faster than a regular factory. “In a Mexican sweatshop, workers have a quota of 1,000 products a day, but in order to produce this, they’d have to make one item every minute.” (Clothing). Another factor into this is the fact that America doesn’t produce enough laborers to make the products for them. Where it would take America months to find enough employees, it only takes China 15 days (Social, slide 7-8). In 2011, the US department of Labor reported that 130 typed of goods in 71 different countries were produced by forced labor, child labor, or both (Meinert, 24). This means that consumers are subconsciously endorsing forced labor. The consumers then buy the products that are made by forced laborers; however, most consumers do not realize the history of the clothing that they wear

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