Beatitudes Blog

ALERT: The new abolition movement and the Beatitudes Society

Submitted by David Batstone on January 20, 2007 - 3:41am.

I totally underestimated how deeply I would be affected by writing my latest book on human trafficking.

Beginning in early 2006, I started a journey to five continents to investigate the mechanisms of the modern slave trade, and sought out those modern incarnations of Harriet Tubman and William Wilberforce who seek to challenge it.

In South Asia I met abolitionists working to free entire families from forced labor in rice mills and brick kilns. In Cambodia and Thailand I went undercover to gather evidence against brothel owners who coerced girls as young as 11 years old to engage in commercial sex. In Uganda, I met young girls and boys who had been kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army, the boys to fight as soldiers and the girls to become sex slaves of the commanders. In Europe I was shocked at the brazen trafficking of young girls into the sex industry. In Peru I found street kids abducted to work against their will for all kinds of profitable enterprises. And in the United States I found slavery in the agricultural fields of Florida, domestic slaves in the homes of wealthy American families, and the garment factories of Los Angeles and New York.

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