Apr 22, 2008

HEALTH MATTERS: Enslaved youth face profound health risks

By LJ Anderson / Daily News Columnist

A confluence of factors allows slavery to thrive in the modern world: illiteracy, debt, desperation, poor economies, exploding urban population growth, immense profits and corrupt officials who tolerate illegal practices. Children are the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves against slavery with its inherent deception, exploitation, and ever-present violence.

Slavery expert Kevin Bales, Ph.D., is president of Free the Slaves (www.freetheslaves.net), a Washington, D.C.-based, nonprofit organization dedicated to ending slavery worldwide. He is the author of several books, including "Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves," formerly taught sociology at Roehampton University in London, and serves on the board of the International Cocoa Initiative.



Q: How did you get involved in this work?

A: I picked up a leaflet (in the early '90s) at a public event in London where I lived for about 20 years. It read, "There are millions of slaves in the world today," and I thought "Huh? How is that possible?" It was a big surprise to me because I had also worked in the field of human rights, and there was almost nothing written at the time about contemporary slavery. I was driven by curiosity to do research and in 1997 or 1998, I began traveling around the world to look at different types of slavery. I saw things that changed me and took me to the next level. I realized that it was not enough for me to go back into the classroom where I was a university professor. I needed to do something about it.



Q: Is there a typical scenario for how a person becomes enslaved?

A: Typically, it's not some kind of violent kidnapping. It's about people being tricked and offered a job, a chance to make money, and to have a good education. In fact, for enslaved people in the United States, if they come from poor countries, need a job, are hungry, and somebody offers them a chance, they take it because they want to take care of their family. A lot of the world is born into hereditary slavery but not in the United States. Many brought here by traffickers are told that they are coming here legally. Often they do come here legally on a student or tourist visa but once inside the country, they lose documents and control of their lives.
Under federal law, once you've been trafficked, your status becomes that of a victim and trumps any other kind of status - assuming they get it right when they try to figure out who you are. The (authorities) have to know how to ask the right questions.



Q: What does research on worldwide slavery show trend-wise for children?

A: Nobody knows the answer but some trends (indicate) that more children are being enslaved than in the past. They are cheaper, malleable, and can be worked hard. Because they are disposable, nobody worries about keeping them alive. And they are undocumented so that makes them easier to get.


Q: What have been the effects on health of enslaved children that you have met?

A: The physical health is exactly what you might imagine in terms of untreated diseases, sexually transmitted diseases including HIV, all kinds of physical injury, trauma and malnutrition. Kids trafficked into the United States may show up with tuberculosis, intestinal parasites, and then suffer physical brutality, trauma and mental damage. Depression is all over the place, too. Judith Herman at Harvard has done work on a category of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) complex-a severe type. A lot of PTSD occurs from a specific event but when the trauma goes on day in and day out, it leaves you in a completely different situation. I've worked with victims as an expert witness in a number of trials, and it's difficult for some of them to keep anything straight. Their mind is shattered, and not surprisingly, since they've been brutalized and raped, they can't always be sure of what happened to them. The barrier between reality, the pain world, and fantasy breaks down.



Q: Are we just learning about contemporary slavery?

A: There has never been a day on planet Earth without slavery, but we're getting a much better understanding of the new kind of slavery. It's still slavery, but one thing has made a big difference. The price of getting a person into slavery has collapsed, and slaves are incredibly cheap. If you look back across all of human history, the average price of a slave in today's money is about $40,000, and for most of history, slaves have been a capital purchase item. Now there is a glut of potential human slaves, and the price has collapsed. The average price for the past 30 years or so around the world is about $100. Instead of buying a tractor, it's like buying Styrofoam cups.

It's a huge and terrible situation, but it's also true that the 27 million in slavery worldwide is the smallest proportion of the global population ever to be enslaved and the smallest amount of money put into the global economy ever represented. There are laws against slavery in every country and agreements that it should not exist. We need a plan of how to get rid of slavery in our lifetime, so there's a lot of hope. As we built our work, I was kind of amazed (to realize) that ending slavery for the first time was within our grasp.



LJ Anderson writes on health matters every Tuesday. She can be reached at lj.anderson@yahoo.com.