Am. Gov. #12

I attended the last club meeting of "Free the Slaves" (apparently not associated with the NGO, they just happen to share the same name). A guy in my Government class is the president of the club and invited all of us to attend. It was eye-opening for sure. I knew that there were still slaves in the world, I just never knew any solid statistics on it.
I learned that a slave is anyone who gives forced labor for free under threat of violence, and cannot get out of the bondage.
27 million people are in slavery. That's the conservative estimate.
The meeting was very well put together, informative, efficient, and hopeful. Even though slavery still is a problem in the world today, I feel like there is something I can do, and it's not a hopeless problem.
I feel like this is an important issue that should be brought to everyone's attention. I know it is important to my father, a man whom I respect very much. He was one of my teachers at my high school. I remember one day he got up in front of the class and he spoke very strongly against the slavery that still exists today. The class full of immature high school kids grew solemn as he told us how disgusted he was that a ring of prostitution traffickers had been discovered in San Francisco, but the news had been pushed to the back pages because Tom Cruise decided to jump up on a couch. Because it was not front page news, this modern day slavery issue was withheld from the public's notice once again. My father told us that this should just not happen; human suffering should never be ignored.
Maybe I am simply feeling the residue from this impassioned lecture from a loving father, but I feel that the awareness of this issue needs to grow. People need to know that human beings are being forced against their will, to do things they will never see the benefit of.
Awareness.
Action.
Awareness.
Action.
If you care about any of your fellow human beings, please go to one of these sites and learn more:

www.PolarisProject.org

www.freetheslaves.net

www.love146.org

www.EndHumanTrafficking.org

www.NotForSaleCampaign.org