Modern-day Slaves

Perhaps no statistic reminds us more graphically of the distortion of power in our world than this: there are twenty-one million slaves in the world today. They labor as brick makers, coffee harvesters, cigarette rollers and domestic servants. They are not free to leave. If they try, they are savagely beaten.

Millions are serially raped in brothels—as young as nine years old—and even those not enslaved in the sex industry are liable to be sexually exploited at the whim of their masters. They are paid nothing beyond the barest amount for their subsistence, often ostensibly to pay off…