Modern Day Slavery example essay topic

I was in complete and utter shock when I began to read Disposable People. The heart-wrenching tale of Seba, a newly freed slave, shook my understanding of people in today's society, as well as their interactions between each other. I sat in silence as I read Seba's story. "There they [Seba's French mistress and husband] stripped me naked, tied my hands behind my back, and began to whip me with a wire attached to a broomstick (Bales 2)". I tried to grasp the magnitude of the situation.

I tried unsuccessfully to tell myself that this couldn't happen in modern times, especially in a city such as Paris. How could this be happening? In the following pages of Kevin Bale's shocking account of the rampant problem of modern day slavery, I learned of more gruesome details of this horrific crime against humanity, such as the different types of slavery, as well as his best estimate of the number of people still enslaved throughout the world, an appalling 27 million. After reading the prescribed two chapters in the book (Child Prostitution in Thailand and Bonded Labor in Brazil), I was in a state of disbelief. I had been taught since elementary school that slavery had ended everywhere when the Emancipation Proclamation was enacted.

I had held this belief for years, and it was something that I believed in. Disposable People completely reversed everything that I had learned in the last 13 years about slavery, which was very hard to accept. Slavery is everywhere in the modern world. Like I said before, I was utterly shocked after reading this book. I didn't know how to react.

I was filled with a combination of rage, sorrow, disbelief, and helplessness that I didn't know what to do with myself. I couldn't fully understand how a human being could disgrace another person like this. How could any person ever accept their fate of slavery? I would rather die then be under the direct control of someone else. Since I was having trouble dealing with the information that I had just read, I decided to ask some people what they thought about modern day slavery. The first discussion I had was with my roommates.

When I told them what I was reading, they had no idea what I was talking about. They were under the impression that slavery had ended with Abraham Lincoln, like I had been. We discussed the details and differences between the types of slavery mentioned in the book, and they became just as confused and angry as I was. They didn't know how this catastrophe still continued today. Although this didn't help me deal with what I was feeling with, I now knew that I was not the only person who was misinformed. I then decided to ask my parents about the book, since they might have known more about this problem since they had more life experience then I had.

As it turns out, they were misinformed as well. As we discussed the issue, it became apparent that their collective knowledge of slavery was very limited as well. They thought that child labor and below minimum wage salaries were slavery, which they are not. When I told them what was actually happening in different parts of the world, they assumed the same feelings that I had, outrage at the inhumanity, sorrow at the ordeals that these people had to endure, and a feeling of helplessness concerning the abolition of modern-day slavery. The elimination of modern day slavery is nowhere near actualization at this point. One of the main reasons for this is the lack of knowledge about this problem.

Out of the 6 people I talked to, one knew very little about this problem, and 5 knew absolutely nothing about it at all. The main consensus, at least in the United States, is that slavery ended long ago. This book boldly denounces that theory, but not enough people know about this book. The end of slavery begins with the education of people who may not even know that slaves still exist. The next hurdle to overcome is the feeling of absolute helplessness that affects every global problem. When people learn of a new global catastrophe, they may take note of it, but then take no action against, using the "I'm only one person, what can I do to fix it?" defense.

Out of the people that I spoke with about this book, half of them said it was a problem that they could do nothing about. If anything is going to change, this attitude is going to have to be modified. To help change this attitude and to encourage progressive action, Kevin Bales included a CODA in his novel which listed five actions that every person in the world could easily follow to start the fight against slavery. The first step is to join an organization called Anti-Slavery International, a non-profit group dedicated to educating the public and abolishing modern-day slavery. The next step is to give a copy of Disposable People to another person who has not yet read it. This will do more to educate and inform the public then anything else.

The next three steps are all directed toward charitable contributions, politicians, and individual investments. It states to "ask hard questions" of all three to make sure that nothing you spend your hard-earned money on will promote slavery in the world. With these five steps, the long fight against slavery can begin (Bales 263-264). This book dealt with the most difficult topic of any book I have read in my first year of college. As such, it was difficult to write this essay, although not for reasons of mechanics or grammar used by the author.

Kevin Bales' book is exceptionally well-written and easy to read. This allows people from many backgrounds to learn of his research and the ongoing problem presented in the book. His book is very persuasive, inspiring the reader to follow all of the ideas offered in the CODA, which was very effective for his cause. He also includes personal accounts and interviews of actual modern-day slaves, both indentured and freed, to give his message a more personal feel, which makes the stories and accounts much more endearing to the reader.

Although they are hard to read, these stories really "hit home" with the reader, making that person want to take action. This book is also one of the first non-fiction books that I've had to write a reaction about. I thought it was going to be difficult to write about a non-fiction book, especially this one, as most non-fiction books are more stories and character development and not cut-and-dry fact. Although this was a non-fiction account, the personal accounts Bales used (such as that of Ronald in Mato Grasso [Bales 127]) did have characters with personal stories, which made it much easier to both relate to the book as a reader and write about the book as a student. These small stories also gave me, as a student, more substance to write about then just numbers and statistics. Overall, Bales did an astounding job mixing those two separate entities, the statistics and the personal, to forge a lasting account of a fairly unknown problem in today's world.

Bales is desperately trying to enlighten the world about slavery, and with this novel, he is well on his way.

Bibliography

Disposable People Bales, Kevin University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, CA 1999.