The enslavement of an adult is an unjust and immoral practice, but most slaves are children. The reason for such a statistic is because children are more easily manipulated, are more easily exploited commercially (prostitution, begging, or trafficking), and are much harder to trace than adults. Children can be exploited in such ways as forced labor, organ removal, servitude, recruitment as child soldier, cults, or athletes. Since the beginning of slavery, child enslavement has been a prevalent and common practice that dates back to child slavery in ancient Greece.
Many factors can attribute to the abduction of children. Most abducted children are from third world/under developed countries that lack many of the basic laws that would otherwise protect children from predators. In some cases, nations that lack infrastructure and development fall victims to natural disasters that not only cause great damage to these nations but give way to the displacement and homelessness of many children. The most famous of such events include the 2004 earthquake near the Western coast of Sumatra that took the lives of 230,000 people and displaced 1.69 million, and the 2010 Earthquake in Haiti that also took the lives of an estimated 230,000 and left 1 million people homeless.
Child slavery is such a prevalent practice due to its profitability. Such statistics prove how lucrative the child sex trade is, "Investigators and researchers estimate the average predator in the U.S. can make more than $200,000 a year off one young girl. – NBC Report by Teri Williams". UNICEF values the global market of child trafficking at over $12 billion a year with over 2.5 million child victims.
However, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Such organization such as the SCT and Humantrafficking.org , whose missions are to target buyers/predators for conviction in hopes of decreasing the demand part of the problem, as well as to provide resources for empowerment, rehabilitation, and self-improvement.
In what instances have children been exploited in cults and as athletes, and how is this a form of slavery?
ReplyDeleteCould a better domestic disaster response plan prevent so many children becoming enslaved? Or is it impossible to prevent enslavement in the aftermath of a natural disaster?
ReplyDeleteI was actually going to pose the same questions as Jessiona. Also, are you in favor of the programs that try to target the buyers of child slaves? While I think that that is a very important aspect of the problem, I think that stopping the problem before it happens is more important. In other words, I think programs that keep children in school are more useful and important, because they'll essentially stop the problem before it starts.
ReplyDeleteI think what people are asking here is: What is your argument?
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