Good thing we work on the evil of 3 generations ago instead of handling the evil of the now:
Most people in slavery today live in Asia and the Middle East, but there are pockets in Africa where it is common too.
Modern slaves are sold for as little as $10-$100 and are therefore often considered disposable by their perpetrators. Approx 70% are women and 25% children.
Slavery is illegal everywhere in the world but enforcement is lax or non-existent in some countries, notably Libya and Yemen.
I’m not sure it’s as extreme as you suggest. Looking up stats on slavery in different countries, there are definitely some extreme outliers, but they don’t account for that much of the global total. And by far the worst offender is North Korea, which is never mentioned in these discussion. I also have no idea how accurate these figures are, but the focus on places like Libya doesn’t seem like an honest assessment of the situation.
In any case, I’m not sure how this matters. I guess it would influence how you fight it. If it’s concentrated in a few countries then you’d want pressure on those governments specifically. But in terms of how bad the problem is, I don’t see that it really matters how geographically spread out it is.
My point, in case it somehow wasn’t obvious, is that we shouldn’t ignore the past just because problems continue.
It’s funny how people who want to deflect away from discussing the Atlantic slave trade by bringing up modern slavery always mention countries like Libya, and not the US. I imagine it’s worse in Libya, but “why focus on the US’s past when slavery is alive and well here in the present” would hit a lot closer to home and would probably be a lot easier to fix.
Jury duty is an interesting question. I’m not a huge fan of the jury system, although it may be the best of bad alternatives. Maybe there’s no good way around this one.
I get that you’re trying to trip me up (and succeeding a bit), but penal labor isn’t difficult or borderline or anything like that. It’s a straightforward “we can make money by forcing that person to work, and it’s not illegal.” There’s no justification beyond, they’re a criminal so they deserve it. Obviously, criminal punishment has to involve violation of certain rights, but I don’t see any reason for it to involve violating this right besides liking money and wanting more of it.
You seem to think that forcing anyone to work is a slippery slope, and considering where we are now, there probably is some merit to that idea.
Very wrong. Prison provides a service to society. We pay for that service out of our own pockets for our own benefit.
This should be true whether you think prison should be about punishment or reform. This should be true regardless of who runs the prison.
If society is unwilling to pay the costs to segregate the population into guilty and not-guilty fractions, they should shut down the prisons and see how expensive that gets.
Trying to offset the costs of that service through literal slavery is insane, immoral, and not in anyone's interest. No crime validates being turned into a slave. Someone being in prison has already been stripped of their freedom, and going further to lease them out as underpriced labor not only fucks with the labor market, but it should not be considered "just" punishment when PRISON is supposed to be the punishment.
Making prisoners pay $2 for fifty cent ramen is just as unethical. If you are unwilling to pay the price for a society without criminals, imprison less people, make fewer criminals, or deal with the consequences. Functioning society has costs. Trying to escape those in such cruel ways is childish, selfish, and stupid.
For the illegal stuff: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_trafficking_in_the_Uni...
And the legal variety: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_St...
... but _why_ point it out? What's the purpose of doing so?
https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/findings/spotl...