Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade and How We Can Fight It

David Batstone is a professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco. He is also the president and founder of Not for Sale. Moreover, he is a renowned journalist who founded an international business involved in the social ventures. Later on in life, Batstone decided to engage in matters of human rights activists which led him to write a book. Batstone is the author of the book Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade - and How We Can Fight It. In this book, he writes about human trafficking and the way social imbalances leading to poverty make it possible for some girls to be found and trafficked.

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The global slave trade is considered to be illegal worldwide such that efforts have been put in place to try and curb this vice, hopefully doing away with it completely. The global slave trade according to Batstone takes the form of human trafficking, whereby there is the movement of people from one country to another, in other instances, from one continent to the next. Violence, brainwashing, and sex usually characterize the movement of people among other factors which are deemed inhumane. The global slave trade was there in the past; however, as the days go by, it is fast growing and is seen to come back in the recent times.

Statistics brought forth by Batstone in his book are mind-blowing. He skillfully unravels the numbers of the global slave trade, and we see what it means to trade humans. The numbers brought forth can be compared to the global slavery index, and it proves to be true. The figures show the prevalence of slavery in the modern days of each country and the vulnerability of the victims of such trade practices. Batstone in the book tells of the existence of more than thirty million slaves worldwide. The global figure is considered to be an average of countries worldwide. That being the case, it raises the problem of criticism and controversy as in some countries data on slave trade is not present. However, those countries are grouped the same as the ones that global slavery is very high. Batstone in his book goes further with the findings where he writes that in Indonesia forced labor is rampant with 700, 000 children made to work. Human trafficking is seen to occur from the third world countries to the first world countries alike, for instance, the United States of America. Into the United States, people are being brought in from 35 countries around the world with a majority being the citizens of the United States. As much as the statistics seem to be shocking, Batstone does not leave it at that and goes an extra mile to exhibit the problem of global slavery in a more personal manner.

Either of the chapters from the book tells of the story of an individual victim of the slave trade or a particular group of victims and their savior who enabled these victims to seek their freedom from slavery. The stories of the victims who are helped to find their freedom are shown to span vast continents and have a great bearing on the different cultures around the world. However, despite the extremities of individual stories, the message is found out to be the same. The general idea given from the chapter is that even more abolitionists to the global act of slavery need to come forth with the intention of doing away with human trafficking. The abolitionists do not have to be extraordinary people, for instance, ordinary people can rise and campaign against human trafficking, and the general injustices associated with slavery, the individual victims of slavery, will be helped to find their freedom. Moreover, the government agencies can play an integral role in achieving freedom from slavery by enforcing the rule of law and coming up with stringent punishment for the sympathizers of the global slave trade. From the book, Batstone writes of slavery abolitionist from Thailand who became conscious of the rise in the sex trade in her motherland. She became aware after seeing the images which went viral and were disturbing of the children on the streets being painted on canvases that were given to them by her. The Thai artist came to learn that those street children were moved from their country of origin all the way into Thailand by deceit. For instance, the children were deceived that they are to receive scholarships that will see them through their school life comfortably. However, this was not the case. The children arrived and immediately separated, with the male children getting sold off to the sex bars owners for selfish interest. The move to deceive the children into accepting to move from their native countries into Thailand made the artist infuriated. Since then she has become an abolitionist to the slave trade and determined to see that the vice is no longer to be tolerated. She worked to help the children and many other people to find their freedom.

More chapters from the book by Batstone tell of Ugandan youth who are forced to join the military to boost the military power by increasing the personnel numbers. The military is usually owned personally and form soldiers for an individual. For instance, some children were recruited forcefully and made to fight for a renowned warlord by the name of Joseph Kony. Kony owned a resistance army that was characterized by doing inhumane things and rebelled against the government of Uganda. Other chapters talk of women of young age in Eastern Europe restricted to work in the sex industry. These women had their dignity taken away as they were reduced into nothing but pleasers on the men in sex bars owned by individuals who were only interested in their financial gain from the services of the young girls. Moreover, the subsequent chapters talk of the Indian families being manipulated to work by force. The members of the families were exploited to work in large farms with no pay and their lives threatened if they showed any form of rebellion.

In his book, Batstone is seen to focus on stories by individual people, and this enabled him to give put faces on the act of slavery and human trafficking. The problem raised is considered a social vice and mistreatment of human rights. We are shown that Batstone has good intentions of making people stand out to be abolitionists of the slave trade but not making people to be outraged. In the concluding chapter, Batstone brings out the idea of the various ways people can join hands and fight against the global slave trade currently on the rise; For instance, enrolling in the Abolitionist Academy, encouraging ethical consumerism among others.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the book can be considered to be a call to action against slavery and mechanism that should follow to abolish this vice.

References

Batstone, D. (2014). Not for sale. HarperCollins e-Books.