Modern Day Slavery

I found this video of a TED talk by Lisa Kristine, Jan 2012. Lisa is a photographer who travelled the world for two years, documenting the harsh realities of 'modern day slaves'.

Some Key Notes:

• “There are more than 27 million people enslaved in the world today — that's double the amount of people taken from Africa during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade.”
• "I knew slavery existed in the world, but not to such a degree...I felt ashamed at my own lack of knowledge of this autrousity in my lifetime"
• 150 years ago, an agricultural slave would cost $50,000 in todays money, three times the annual salary of  an American worker, today they are enslaved for just $18
• Slavery generates profits of more the $13 Billion dollars world wide, each year.
• They are usually tricked with false promises of education and better jobs
• The goods that have enslaved people produce have value but the people producing them are disposable
• Slavery exists everywhere and is illegal everywhere
• Her camera got far better treatment than the people
• Some don't even know their enslaved as this has been the case all their lives, they have nothing to compare it too
• When the villagers claimed their freedom, the slave holders burned down all of their houses. 
• Some sex slaves were as young as 7 years old
• Between 100,000 and 300,000 American children are sold into sex slavery each year
• Children taken from their families and trafficked and vanished
• Met a slave who has known cruelty all his life and so passes that down to the younger slaves that he manages
• "He has a dream that he will become free and become educated with the help of local activists like free the slaves"

Textile Slavery, Uttar Pradesh, India. 10.14

• Visited villages were entire family's were enslaved in the silk trade.
• The mix dye in big barrels and submerge the silk in them up to their elbows, but the dye is toxic
• "We have no freedom, we hope still though that we can leave this house some day and go some place else where we actually get paid for our dying"

She took photographs like the one below as she wanted them to know we would be baring witness to them and try to make a difference in their lives. The images are not of issues, they are of people all deserving of the same rights and dignities in their lives. 

Reference: http://www.ted.com/talks/lisa_kristine_glimpses_of_modern_day_slavery.html