Slavery in the 21st Century

Paper Summary:

This paper reports that human rights groups have documented the existence of traditional slavery in Sudan, Mauritania, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan and of coercive labor systems in several Middle East countries, which are so exploitative that they have been condemned as virtual economic slavery. The author points out that, although the Arabian Peninsula in 1964 became the world's last region to officially abolish slavery, forty years later Saudi Arabia still has more than two-hundred and fifty-thousand slaves. The paper relates that Islamic doctrine provides religious justification for slavery and enables slave traffickers to flout laws prohibiting it. The paper also asserts that, although slavery does not exists in the United States, millions of migrant workers are subjected to coercive conditions and abusive treatment that are little better than slavery.

From the Paper:

"Consequently, in objective terms, a human being who is not free to leave and has no influence on the conditions or length of their economic servitude is a virtual slave. They may have civil rights, but if they are rendered powerless to defend those rights, they are enslaved in a coercive system they cannot defy. They do not have to be bought and sold to be considered a slave, for when they are rendered no effective legal protection by any civil or religious authorities, they are a slave in everything but name."

Sample of Sources Used:

• Gunasekara, Victor. (2007). "Slavery and the Infidel in Islam." Online. Available: http://www.uq.net.au/slsoc/manussa/tr05manu.htm. 29 March 2007.
• Lewis, Bernard. (1994). Race and Slavery in the Middle East. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• "Slavery in Sudan." (June 2001). United Nations Commission on Human Rights." June 2001. Online. Available: http://www.antislavery. org/archive/submission/ submission2001-Sudan.htm. 29 March 2007.
• The Holy Qu'ran. (1997). New York: Noor Foundation International.
• Trifkovic, Serge. (2002). The Sword of the Prophet. New York: BHB International.

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