Slavery

Current Event
Amy Owen

Is slavery rapid today? I am going to walk you through a horrible reality as I answer this question. I hope to show you the reality, as well as, giving you hope that there may be steps that we can take to work towards solving this problem.
The problem of slavery isn’t isolated, over 20 million innocent people are estimated to be in slavery today (Slavery Today). In Haiti alone there are 200,000 children who are used as slaves, even though slavery was outlawed in 1804. Niger took many more years to outlaws slavery (Slavery Today). It wasn’t until 2003 that Niger took the first steps to end this horrible reality, but just like Haiti, slavery didn’t end when the papers were signed (Slavery Today). There are still 870,000 people who are enslaved enduring horrible physical abuse. One assumption that many people have is that slavery only occurs in undeveloped countries. The reality is that there are thousands of women and children in Western countries that are sold as sex toys (Slavery Today). These women and children are in modernized countries where slavery has been banded for years (Slavery Today). The fact that slavery is worldwide can make many people just throw in the towel. It almost feels unfixable. Some human rights activists believe that they have found a way to detect slavery and other human rights violations (Spotts). They hope that a high tech satellite can be the answer. The satellite can observe the conditions that people live. The only draw back is that the equipment is extremely costly (Spotts).
As American’s I feel that we have had certain things beat into our heads. One of those things is the importance of freedom. If we are willing to send our citizens to fight and possibly die for our freedom how can we put a price on someone else’s freedom? I believe that no one if asked would say that it is ever okay to buy or sell a human being. Some other cultures may disagree, but the UN agrees. They say that every human has certain rights and one of those rights is that “no one should be held in slavery or servitude” (Sernau 197). I feel that no matter what it takes us as fellow humans should hold ourselves to a standard that values other people’s rights like we value ours. America is a “rights” speaking country. We are aware of what rights we have and how to fight if our rights are being threatened, but we are the first to over look someone else’s rights.







Citations

Sernau Scott. Global Problems. Boston, MA: Pearson Education Inc, 2006.

Spotts, Petter. "Montoring Human rights? Get a satellite." abcnews.go.com. 18/08/2006. 18 Aug 2006 .

"Slavery Today." BBCWORLDSERVICE.com. 18 Aug 2006 .