This movie was made (and is available on DVD for $15) by freetheslaves.net.

The movie includes clips of Kevin Bales, the author or Disposable People.

Thanks to francky for bringing it to my attention.

slavery: Forced labor without pay under threat of violence.
(definition by American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG))

Slavery still exists, in America and around the world.

There are many people in the world who are poor, who are near starvation, who cannot find work or who have been devastated by a natural disaster. There are people who are paid pennies for hours upon hours of hard labor in poor conditions. There are children who are sent to work at the same age we would begin sending our children to school. ....This book is not about any of these people.

Kevin Bales has documented slavery in Thailand, Mauritania, Brazil, Pakistan, and India (and probably other countries as well, but these are the 5 places he addresses in detail in this book). He has spoken directly not only with slaves, but when possible, with their slaveholders. Although slavery is illegal in every country on this planet, slavery continues. People are taken against their will, money is exchanged as these people are handed over to others, and then these people are made to work for no pay under the threat of violence.

There are some notable differences between the slavery we may be familiar with from history books and the slavery that takes place across the globe today: Slavery is now illegal. Slaves are cheaper to obtain than they were in the 1600 - 1800's. Incredibly high profits can be made by the use of slave labor. There is a surplus of potential slaves. Slaves are often kept for only short periods. Slaves are disposable. And ethnic differences are of little importance.

Slavery is now illegal. In the past, slaveowners received receipts, or ownership papers, for the slaves they purchased. There were also laws on how a slaveowner was to treat the people he had purchased. Today, there is no legal ownership of people and slaveholders do not receive (or even want) receipts for their purchases. (Why would they want documentation that could be used to prove they had slaves? Then again, the police in the countries where slavery thrives are often so corrupt that it's doubtful the slaveholder would ever be called to court.) There are also no laws that a slaveholder must adhere to in their treatment of the people under their control. Anything goes, including killing a slave that is no longer of any use, who is too badly damaged to work, or who is causing problems. As Kevin Bales says, "Slaveholders have all of the benefits of ownership without the legalities."

Slaves are cheaper to obtain than they were in the 1600 - 1800's. In pre-civil war America, buying a slave was an investment. By the mid-1800's a slave might sell for anywhere between $1,000 to $1,800 (equivalent to about $50,000 - $100,000 in todays funds). Though the slaves were still treated very poorly, there was an incentive to keep them alive for as long as possible. Slaves today sell for as little as $30. When a slave is no longer worth keeping they are simply disposed of one way or another.

Incredibly high profits can be made by the use of slave labor. Slavery is incredibly profitable. In pre-civil war America a slave generated only about 5 percent profit. In India, a slave can generate a profit of over 50 percent. In Thailand, a sex slave can bring in as much as an 800 percent profit for the slaveholders. In fact, in some cases it is very hard to pin down exactly who the slaveholder might be as there's an entire chain of employees and investors involved in the process. The girl may be paid for and controlled by a man at the brothel where she must work, but that man is most likely receiving capital for the purchase of slaves as well as the running of the brothel from Thai, or Japanese, investors (who may or may not know what their investments are supporting).

There is a surplus of potential slaves. Following World War II, the world's population has exploded, especially across Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. Resources have become strained due to the increased demands of the population and many are left poor and desperate. Subsequently, lives become cheap and the potential slave population increases.

Slaves are often kept for only short periods. Slaves are disposable. In today's world, slaves are easy to replace. When one becomes ill, injured, or simply too old or used up to work at the pace demanded, the slaveholder may simply let them go. Of course, the slaveholder doesn't go through the hassle of figuring out where the slave came from in the first place and returning them. The slave is simply dropped off somewhere, without any money, most likely sick and completely demoralized, in a strange place. The now ex-slave may not even speak the language of the people in the place where they have been dropped off. They don't know who can be trusted, who to turn to, or where to start to find work, food or shelter.

Ethnic differences are of little importance. The slavery that many of us are familiar with is very closely tied to race. Though this is still true in Mauritania, throughout the rest of the world race plays no part in slavery. The poor are the targets, irregardless of the color of their skin.

Though slavery is a moral issue, Kevin Bales understands that trying to change people's morals when doing so might cost them 800% return on their investments is a losing battle. So instead he delves into the economics of today's slavery in order to provide not just a sense of why it is taking place, but also how it can best be fought against. He explains how this is a global issue, not just one of Southeast Asia, India or any one country. As Bales points out, "No paid workers, no matter how efficient, can compete economically with unpaid workers -- slaves."

I have barely begun to skim the surface of the issues that Kevin Bales delves into. I can not come anywhere near to giving the detail, the background, the eye witness accounts and the poignant summaries about present day slavery that Bales has poured into this book. If you are interested in the topic of slavery, then I highly recommend that you read this book. If you aren't interested, then I'd recommend that you reconsider.

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Quotes from the book.
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"Slavery is an obscenity. It is not just stealing someone's labor; it is the theft of an entire life."

"There are more slaves alive today than all the people stolen from Africa in the time of the transatlantic slave trade. Put another way, today's slave population is greater than the population of Canada, and six times greater than the population of Israel."

"The important point is that slaves constitute a vast workforce supporting the global economy we all depend upon."

"In India, for example, there are between 65 and 100 million children ages fourteen and younger who work more than eight hours a day. They fill the sweatshops and do many other kinds of work. Worse, about 15 million of these children are not child laborers but child slaves. And enslaved children are even more hidden; trapped in debt bondage, they tend not to work in sweatshops producing for large-scale export but in smaller-scale, more isolated businesses. Unlike the owners of factories making soccer balls, their masters have little fear of exposure or public pressure."

"In slavery today we can see that the distance between "master" and slave is growing wider and wider. In the fully developed new slavery of Thailand or Brazil there are elaborate chains of contracts and control. These become so complicated that it is hard to say who exactly "owns " the slave. But just because we can't finger the slaveholder doesn't mean that slavery has ceased to exist, any more than a murder doesn't exist because the killer can't be found. The new slavery is a crime with millions of victims but very few identifiable criminals--and that makes its eradication very difficult. For the most part, these criminals are "respectable" businesspeople."

"But we have to remember that violence is the tool, not the aim, of slavery. Slaveholders will violently defend their lucrative businesses, but they will walk away from the slaves and the business if it stops making money. Putting the pressure on its profits is a key strategy for ending slavery."

I'm half Ukrainian. For years I've told that to people when they ask what nationality I am and they've just looked at me and nodded and pretended to know what I was talking about. Then I'd explain that it's part of the Soviet Union (or was, depending upon when we're talking about) and they'd suddenly look quite on top of things and nod again saying, "Oh, Russia. Right."

But that's not at all what I wanted to write about.

Rather, I thought that perhaps I could start to compile some of the info. that I've found concerning the trafficking of Ukrainian women and the plight of orphans in Ukraine (tied together by the theme of severe poverty in Ukraine as well as in many other Eastern European countries).

About two years ago, missionaries to Ukraine came and spoke at our church, and though my dad has been to Ukraine several times, and though I identify fairly strongly with the fact that I'm of Ukrainian decent, it wasn't until I heard from these people first hand what it was like over there that I felt compelled to find a way to do something to help.

About a year ago, after reading an article by Kimberlee Acquaro in the New York Times magazine about the international sex slave trade I became not only incensed, but convinced that I should find out more, make sure others knew, and try to figure out what I could do to make a difference.

Within the past 6 months these two internal imperatives have been prompting me more and more frequently to study, to learn, and to do. So far, all I can say I've done is to tell others, and to support an orphanage organization that a friend (who has spent time getting to know several teens in a Ukrainian orphanage) recommended -- Orphans Hope. And here is some of what I've learned.

* * * * *

"More than 120 million people in Eastern Europe earn less than US$4 per day. Where old Soviet economic systems have been disrupted or discarded, there has been economic contraction and hyperinflation, which has wiped out people's savings and security. In Ukraine, over 60 percent of the unemployed are women, and of those who have lost their job since 1991, more than 80 percent are women. The average salary in Ukraine is about US$30 a month, but in many small towns, it is only half that." -- Trafficking in Women from Ukraine, by Donna M. Hughes and Tatyana Denisova (Dec. 2003) -- link to pdf file here

"Sixty five percent of cases of trafficking of women from Ukraine was carried out by organized crime networks. They traffic women because it is a high profit business with low investment. The networks are highly organized, have large-scale operations, and are connected to corrup officials. ...The size of the groups varies throughout Ukraine. The largest criminal groups in Ukraine with 20 to 30 members are in Odessa. In other regions, the groups are smaller, with five to six members. The criminal groups have territories they operate in, and are known to collaborate with officials who provide them with protection and authentic documents for travel. Organized crime groups have databases of potential victims for trafficking from sources such as applications from women for beauty contests or marriage agencies. The databases include photographs of the women, height, weight, and personality traits. Traffickers in Ukraine receive from US$800 to $2,000 per woman they deliver to pimps abroad. The value of the woman depends on her appearance and the destination country. The higher the development of the destination country, the higher the price that will be paid for her." -- "The Transnational Political Criminal Nexus of Trafficking in Women from Ukraine," Trends in Organized Crime, Vol. 6, No. 3-4: Spr.-Sum. 2001, Donna M. Hughes and Tatyana Denisova (link to pdf here)

"Can people really buy and sell women and get away with it? Sometimes I sit here and ask myself if that really happened to me, if it can really happen at all." - A Ukrainian woman who was trafficked, beaten, raped and used in the sex industry in Israel. After a police raid, she was put in prison, awaiting deportation.

"Tragic statistics show that within two years of leaving the orphanage at age fifteen or sixteen, 60% of orphan girls turn to prostitution, 70% of boys fall into crime, and over 10% take their own lives." -- taken from Orphans' Hope literature