Kevin Bales

World's Leading Authority on Modern Slavery
President of Free The Slaves

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QUOTES

We could eradicate slavery. The laws are in place. The multi-nationals, the world trade organizations, the UnitedNations, they could end slavery, but they're not going to do it until and unless we demand it.

the 4th right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that there can be no slavery. Virtually every human being agrees that it is a moral wrong. Those key battles are won by people who went before us, who had the really tough job. Our job is simply to make sure that countries enforce their own laws and that slaves, when freed, have an opportunity for rehabilitation, reintegration, education, and so forth

It surprises people that there’s actually a very large number of slaves in the world today—our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very narrow way; we’re not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor, we’re talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away, who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.

Slavery is what slavery's always been: About one person controlling another person using violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That's what slavery's about

“It’s as if all identity has been stolen from them, except their identity as slaves.”

We have to make it clear to the multi-nationals that slavery is too high a price to pay for cheap goods

I want to be very clear that we're talking about slavery. We're not talking about sweat shops. We're not talking about people who have really bad jobs. We're talking about people who are truly enslaved. And that's why I wanted to pop up this definition to be clear that we're talking about people who are controlled by violence, who have no pay whatsoever, working without any kind of payment, who are being economically exploited, basically people who cannot walk away. They are totally under the control of other people

For some slaves, the first step out of bondage is to learn to see their lives with new eyes. Their reality is a social world where they have their place and some assurance of a subsistence diet. Born into slavery, they cannot easily redefine their lives outside the frame of enslavement.

Slavery is theft -- theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce, theft even of the children a slave might have borne.

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