Above, Indian children shout slogans during a protest in New
Delhi on the Global Day Against Child Trafficking. While many
countries have laws banning child labor, India has only recently
pushed for a comprehensive law to punish child labor employers.
Despite being outlawed, modern slavery persists. The
International Labour Organisation (ILO) recently estimated that
20.9 million people are modern slaves worldwide. The search for
the cheapest labor and lowest production costs creates a market
that human traffickers supply. Children are not alone, as adults
are also shackled into performing forced labor in parts of the
world where enforcement is lax and corruption unbounded. The
closest most Americans will come to modern slavery is
calculating how many slaves work for them. Few realize that
modern slaves may have picked the produce at their grocery store
or the beans for their Fair Trade coffee. A group of Brazilian
slave laborers listens to a Labor Ministry inspector (R) explain
their legal rights on the Bom J