Modern Slaves

There are estimated 20-40 million people in slavery today. That is an extremely large portion of the world’s population- and those people are enslaved in the 21st century! Today, it is not about literally owning a person- although it still happens- but more about taking advantage of the lesser and controlling their lives. How come 40 million people be in slavery and the problem be not in the news constantly? Forced labor, child labor, debt bondage, human trafficking, and even forced marriage are all forms of modern slavery. People needs to know about these 40 million people. In this day and age, media is a powerful tool that can raise awareness of this issue. Anyone that has access to the internet has the ability to help these people. Either by sharing this issue, or by donating to organizations that aims to end slavery. Such issue like this is worth raising awareness by social media models, like how Facebook would prioritize certain topic to influence users.

A large portion of the modern slavery is made up of forced prostitutions. These women are forced to live such lives because of exploitation, having no choices economically, having little to no educations, and some are born into such lives. The question of whether if making voluntary prostitutions legal would help fight forced prostitutions came up. If it is legal, there would likely be regulations, such as enforcing protective sex, safer brothel, and those who doesn’t want to doesn’t have to. However, over half of voluntary prostitutes reported of being abused or attacked by customers. If prostitution is illegal, there’s a greater chance of underground brothels, thus leading to forced prostitutions. It is a very difficult issue to tackle. Before making it legal, I think the economy has to be thriving. There has to be many opportunities for women in other fields so that they wouldn’t have the pressure to sell their body. In such case, I think there is more benefits in legalized voluntary prostitutions than making it illegal.