Raising Awareness of Modern Slavery
Last week, I received an email from a woman who read my blog, “Debt Peonage,” posted on October 9th, 2023. She reached out to thank me “for addressing such an important topic as modern slavery” and sent me a link to share with my readers, helping to raise awareness of modern slavery.
Arnold Mutinda writes for Website Planet, in his article “What is Modern Slavery: A Comprehensive Research,” posted July 23, 2024, Mutinda wrote: “Although today’s victims are not openly enslaved as they were in centuries past, millions of people still face a more subtle form of slavery- and, for the most part, their suffering goes unnoticed.” His article also gives an astonishing fact of a global estimate of modern slavery, 49.6 million people worldwide, concerning gender, income, and age. It is difficult to understand such a staggering number.
In past blogs, I have explained my research on debt peonage while writing Song of Jaybird and how this enslavement opened my eyes to the problems of the enslaved post-Civil War, as well as the reality of continued use of victims being enslaved.
Walk Free is an organization that raises awareness of modern slavery and provides practical ways and resources for making a difference. I hope we can investigate these links to increase our consciousness. Victims easily live in the shadows with no one noticing.
In my blog post, “Why is writing about debt peonage important?” posted February 12, 2024, I wrote: “There is a premise we don’t want to believe, “especially if we didn’t live through it ourselves.” Once again, we put ourselves in a position to “repeat history.”
We are all familiar with the various quotes from statesmen, philosophers, and playwrights from different backgrounds and political views that quote the theme of “history repeating.”
The Irish American playwright Eugene O Neill (1888-1953) asked, “The past is the present, isn’t it? It’s the future, too.”
Interestingly, we are the present, and those quotes were written in the “past.” Yet O’Neill reminds us that if the past is the present, then the present is now. What is the future of present-day modern slavery? How do we grasp our accountability for repeating history?
In an article, “History Repeating” College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences, Virginia Tech, I read, “Lessons from the past may not always ward off doom, but they can provide insights into the present and even the future.” https://liberalarts.vt.edu/magazine/2017/history-repeating
I appreciate the time the woman took to read my blog, email, share Arnold Mutinda’s article, and encourage me to write this blog. Thank you, KW!
Please feel free to leave your comments below.
