Essay on Slavery

Slavery dates back to Babylon around 2500 years ago and it continues to be a problem in the modern era. Slavery is not a one dimension and it involves both physical, racial and gender of the slave. In this paper, I will compare and contrast slavery of the ancient times with the one in the modern society. In the ancient times, slavery was notably depicted by acts of forced labour while in the contemporary society human trafficking has become a major form of slavery. For instance, women and children are being forced into commercial sex working by thugs and others organized in crime groups for the benefit of the gangs. In the past men were the one who were mostly used as commodities in slave trade since they could be sold to provide manual labour to their masters in places such as mining centres and plantations.

Women and girls were not involved in slavery in large numbers as compared to men since they were assumed to be weak gender and could not fit to perform hard tasks such as mining. Women captured as slaves were used to perform household tasks such as cooking and washing clothes among other duties. in the modern era, both men and women, boys and girls are being taken as sex slaves, this is most prevalent in Asian countries. During ancient time slave trade was done for acquisition of labour from the slaves. in modern era governments have to set aside budgets to be incurred on expenditure to do away with human trafficking and slavery even though it has been a challenge to do away with slavery completely (Hatch and Mary, 98).

In the united states of America slavery was acceptable by law and a common practice during ancient days. It constituted a significant percentage in the economy of the united states of America. Families with more slaves were said to have more wealth since they could afford to buy large numbers of slaves who in turn provided labour in their farms. This lead to increased production hence more wealth to the family. This category of slaves had the least chances of getting freedom. The other level of slavery the ones who enjoyed privileges they lived away from their master and they were given payment or paramount to their master. They enjoyed staying away from their master as well as working without supervision.

They consisted of skilled bankers, craftsmen and overseers. Whatever they earned belonged to their master but not all of it. In modern era slavery does not really mean an individual who owns another. There are other practices which amount to slavery. This includes debt bondage where by a person’s work acts as the security for a debt and the person has not been sold but is on long lease hence is not able to leave the employer. The debt may even be inherited from one generation to another. What the individual gain from the employer only caters for food and shelter hence they are stuck in the job for life. Immigrants also suffer forced labour after being sold by selfish individuals for personal gain this is evident in both cases.