When I hear the word slavery, I think of the olden ages where people were bound with collars and chains.
When I hear the term modern slavery, I think forced prostitution or child labour.
In reality, modern slavery is so much more than that. It does include forced prostitution and child labour, but so many more ways as well. Forced labour, fishing and camel racing are just some more examples.
Mekong Club is a non-profit organisation that tries to free the people currently in these situations.
In the world, there are 40 million people enslaved, with 1 more being caught in this trap every 4 seconds.
So far, they have freed 80,000 people. That seems like a lot but it’s only 0.2% of the total number.
One thing that stood out to me was a story he told us, about one of the girls who got freed. They asked her if she was angry at her captors. She said no. She said she was angry at them, she said ‘where were you!’ That stands out because it makes us realise how little we are actually able to do.
Learning about all these things happening around the world really shocked me. But I still have a few questions.
What do they do to help the people they rescue? How do they get them rehabilitated and introduced back into society?
It’s all good to get them out of slavery, but if they don’t get educated or learn some basic skills. How much better is it really?
I really like the way you summed up what he said even including specific things that he had said. I think your questions were well thought through and certainly capture some aspects of the SDG’s in terms of how they need to be educated and learn basic skills. I thought this was a really good evaluation. Well done.