The Fight To Abolish Slavery Continues

July 23, 2009 11:45 AM

Not For Sale: There are 27 million slaves worldwide right now. Here’s a map of where they are.

For many people, awareness of modern slavery—especially slavery in America—began with John Bowe, when his article “Nobodies” was published in the New Yorker in 2003. That was subsequently followed by a book of the same title, part of which became the basis for This American Life #344 “The Competition.” Here’s Bowe on NPR’s Marketplace as well.

Now ethicist David Batstone (interview) is devoting his time to abolishing slavery, through his book Not For Sale, and through co-founding the Not For Sale Campaign, which “equips and mobilizes Smart Activists to deploy innovative solutions to re-abolish slavery in their own backyards and across the globe.” Here’s an excerpt from the book.

posted by Pater Aletheias (34 comments total)

Previously.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:52 AM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Holy shit, there was one just less than half a mile away from me!
posted by klangklangston at 11:59 AM on July 23

Great, I'll use this map whenever I need to find the closest McDonald's.
posted by jeremy b at 12:05 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

That website first might contain information that'll change my life, but I'm never gonna see it.

What is it with all these pre-intro pages?? Do designers still think it's 1995? Is this the old intro tunnel, flashed up?

Worst web page ever.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 12:11 PM on July 23

Is there a breakdown on the site of the types of slavery? I drilled down to the instances in Alberta, and they were all sex trafficking, which is about what I would expect for most of North America, but I wouldn't be surprised to find some sweatshops in there as well.
posted by fatbird at 12:19 PM on July 23

None in Russia. Well done Russia.
posted by fire&wings at 12:25 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

According to the map, there are two slaves in Boston's Government Center! Holy shit! And to think I've voted for Mayor Menino, whom the map suggests is a common slave-owner like George Washington.
posted by Mayor Curley at 12:32 PM on July 23

None in Russia. Well done Russia.

None in the UAE/Dubai either...
posted by PenDevil at 12:36 PM on July 23

None in Russia. Well done Russia

You're kidding. Right?
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 12:42 PM on July 23

None in the UAE/Dubai either...

A-ha... ha... yeah. We need more people reporting to the site, I guess. Which is why it's good it's getting publicity, I guess?
posted by six-or-six-thirty at 12:43 PM on July 23

Kinda sloppy site.

1. Interface is clunky.

2. Lack of information makes certain counties look worse than others when the opposite is true. Yeah, Canada really has more incidents of slavery than Mexico or Russia combined, hmmm? Hell, there are parts of India that literally teem with children kept in cages for the sex-trade, no mention of it on the map.

3. Pretty vague definition of slavery. Seems to include some domestic prostitution and some instances of domestic abuse, both of which are serious issues and can be pretty horrible, but are not usually included as slavery in most statistics.
posted by edgeways at 12:46 PM on July 23

Hmm. I was expecting to see more about bonded laborers in India and Pakistan, or the brick kiln incidents in China.
posted by pravit at 12:52 PM on July 23

A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.
-Margaret Sanger
posted by nam3d at 1:16 PM on July 23

Rubbish site, rubbish information
posted by A189Nut at 1:18 PM on July 23

Unfortunately, many of these incidents of "slavery" really can only be addressed after the fact. The mean suburban housewife who snatches the passport and visa of her immigrant maid and makes her work 24-7 is really not in the same category of systemic, legalized slavery. How can you successfully fight to abolish those kinds acts when they're already illegal? It's good that these are getting exposed, though.
posted by Burhanistan at 1:22 PM on July 23

So the site says:

Slavery thrives in the shadows. An estimated 27 million live in bondage today – yet we know about the plight of so few of them. The battle to end slavery begins by revealing it. "

I couldn't agree more. But beyond the less-than-universal definition of slavery any other potential errors on this map, there's that word "today" and how this map is supposedly revealing it.

However, in at least 2 of the 5 I checked in my quick glance at the site are "new" reports of events that happened over 10 years ago. That doesn't make them any less horrible, but it makes them a lot less "today."
posted by MCMikeNamara at 1:31 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

"Hell, there are parts of India that literally teem with children kept in cages for the sex-trade, no mention of it on the map." This has been James Pedeaston for The Wild Traveler.
posted by Smedleyman at 1:56 PM on July 23

"Holy shit, there was one just less than half a mile away from me!"

There were three near where I live, apparently. And none in the rest of the city or its surrounding area. Probably not enough users yet to smooth out the data.
posted by Kevin Street at 2:37 PM on July 23

Hah! The have the slavery marked in Cheyenne, Wyoming, as taking place in Casper, Wyoming.

Everyone in the world knows that Cheyenne is in southeastern Wyoming, while Casper is in the middle of the state.

Right?
posted by elder18 at 3:35 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Missed one, mid-town Manhattan.
posted by sfts2 at 4:31 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

This weirds me out on a few different levels.
posted by rageagainsttherobots at 4:44 PM on July 23

There was a trafficker five blocks away from the house where I grew up. Yikes.
posted by painquale at 5:56 PM on July 23

nam3d: "A free race cannot be born of slave mothers.
-Margaret Sanger"

I'm not sure your intent in bringing Margaret Sanger into this. She was something of a racist and a major figure in the eugenics movement. The quote you used might just as easily be interpreted to mean that she thought a free race should eliminate people of color using birth control, which she did advocate. It might not be a bad idea to go back to that Wikipedia page and scroll down to the middle section on eugenics and see if that quote is actually appropriate in this context.
posted by Toekneesan at 6:14 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Not one Honduran slave girl found in Manhattan?

Yeah. Right.
posted by Talez at 6:35 PM on July 23

I'm against this.
posted by ixohoxi at 7:40 PM on July 23

Again, loose definition of slavery. The "massage" place down the street from where I used to live was well known to be a place of seedy transactions. It is noted on the map, with the evidence being merely an exposé in a college newspaper of sexual offers for money. Prostitution is not always slavery. Yes, an adult woman may fall into this line of work due to many negative external forces, but is it necessarily slavery? No, I think not.
posted by greta simone at 8:06 PM on July 23 [1 favorite]

Agree completely with greta simone which is what I meant by my snarky comment earlier. I, of course (it's obviously, "of course" right?), am opposed to slavery, and even probably all of the situations described on this map, and I fully support the abolition that this organization is striving for. However, bad data and loose definitions seem like they could do much damage in to a movement that any decent person should support.
posted by MCMikeNamara at 10:17 PM on July 23

This is a great, disturbing site, but it would be helpful if they made some visual distinction between prostitution arrests and child trafficking. It would be even more helpful if they broke down the different types of human trafficking by some kind of visual clue on the map.
posted by crataegus at 10:43 PM on July 23

Funnily enough that maps quite closely onto where my company has offices..
posted by MuffinMan at 1:09 AM on July 24

I don't know about this. The single instance listed in my city is not slavery related at all.

They also missed the opportunity to point out all of the "asian spas" that exist in my area.
I guess it is a work in progress then.
posted by orme at 8:35 AM on July 24

They also missed the opportunity to point out all of the "asian spas" that exist in my area.

It's not a pay-for-sex locator. The criteria for "slavery" probably includes such measures as confiscating identification and active coercion. That probably doesn't occur in the majority of the spas.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:48 AM on July 24

(was joking about the pay-for-sex locator)
posted by Burhanistan at 8:48 AM on July 24

Used the wrong way, this website provides quick access to inexpensive hookers in my area.
posted by lothar at 9:33 AM on July 24

The everybody-edits wikinature of this makes it pretty hard to take seriously, and that's a shame because the real issue they're bouncing off is important.

But I suspect a year from now, what you'll have for the USA is a map of red dots that define the Bible Belt, with every sex worker or inappropriately-dressed waitress reported as a "slave" by one Aunt Mabel or another.
posted by rokusan at 2:08 PM on July 24