Introduction
The idea of slavery for many people is the images of black men in cotton plantations, working a whole day for no pay. The trade of African people for lifetimes of slavery is the other embedded idea of slavery to many people living in Canada and United States. These concepts of slavery ignore the possibility of a current form of slavery. The idea that slaves are working forcefully without pay in Canada and the United States is farfetched. This status of ignorance acts as part of the modern day slavery, where people, especially young girls, are sold for purposes of prostitution. The UN estimates that there are 2.5 million people caught up in slavery in the world, and the industry generates more than $30 billion in revenues in the United States alone. Canada is a key logistical location for human trafficking; hundreds of people are trafficked for forced drug addiction, sexual exploitation and torture in the United States through Canada (Stone, 2012). In 2012, the Toronto Sun reported a case of “a Richmond Hill man was convicted of human trafficking. He had forced a young woman into prostitution against her will, taking every penny she earned at gunpoint” (Stone, 2012). This paper will highlight the problem of modern slavery with a keen focus on Canada, both a place where slavery takes place and as a logistical location for human trafficking.
The numbers
The Walk Free Foundation’s Global Slavery Index released data in May 2016 that painted a glum picture of modern day slavery. There more than 45.8 million people trapped in slavery in the world, a number that is much higher than previous estimations. Though Canada is one of the countries with low slavery rates, the study found put that there are more than 6200 slaves in Canada (Press, 2016). The slaves are used for forced labor, prostitution and drug trafficking, and they are spread among Canada's big cities. The strangest aspect of modern day slavery is that it does not differ much from the slavery of the early days, as human beings are still sold at slave markets in places in Canada, United Kingdom, the United States and Haiti. The secret nature of owning slaves makes it hard to establish data on the depth of the problem. In fact, most published researches are journalistic in perspective, digging into specific cases of slavery as opposed to tackling the issue broadly (Gresens, 2010).
Corporate slaves
Apart from the forced type of labor on bought slaves, Canada has a high number of immigrants with temporary work permits. “In 2011, Canada admitted 156,077 economic immigrants as permanent residents, and 190,769 migrant workers with temporary status.” (Public Service Alliance Canada, 2011). The migrants with temporary status permits offer their skills in corporations and companies in Canada. Because they cannot push for fair wages due to the pressure of the need to get a job and earn a living, companies that are greedy and unscrupulous underpay the workers so as to make super profits. This practice leads to a kind of slavery that takes the rights of fair wages and alliances from the migrants, pushing them to the mercy of company executives. These new methods of slavery are hard to detect and control, as the companies are protected by treaties such as Free Trade Agreements. In this vein, therefore, workers are left to struggle on their own, getting meager salaries that cannot support decent lifestyles and working conditions that are as bad as the temporary work permits. Canada is a usual target by migrants due to its geographical location and language diversity. Someone who speaks French and English would fit into the societies of Canada without a struggle, making the country one of the most preferred destinations. The fact that the people who move to Canada lack bargaining power and full working rights make it hard for them to argue their case.
The rise of slaves who are legally registered people is the most complicated one. Cartels of exploiters go around in developing countries looking for talent, register them and find jobs for these people. The arrangements are carried out by cartels that aid in registering people to become legal citizens of the country, then go ahead to exploit them by having them pay back the debt of the money that was used for traveling, accommodation and visa. The problems begin when they have to pay back the debts forever, without knowledge of how much they should pay and for how long. "They work long hours, seven days a week, without pay, in the impossible attempt to repay a debt which will never be settled." (Villa, 2013). The challenge with this type of slavery is the inability to find or establish data because the slaves are living free in normal societies and local communities. They live thinking that they will finish paying the debts one day, a day that never comes, pushing them to the brink of surrender to complete ownership by the slave masters.
Sexual exploitation
Perhaps, the most unapologetic form of slavery in Canada is sexual exploitation and forced servitude. In 2010, a Canadian Magazine, Literary Review of Canada, exposed the operations of an underground sex trafficking cartel that was offering girls for hire. The Website used redirection links from Craiglist.com to a platform where advertisements on girls were done. The adverts would list the qualities and age of the girl, as well as the price for having sex with her. The girls were completely owned by traffickers and the money paid was going to these cartels. “In minutes, one can find on Craigslist females who, to photographic appearances, are not women old enough to sell sex voluntarily, but girls.” (Attaran, 2010). The expose dug into the dark world of owning girls and selling them for sex, then transferring them to other regions in the world where they would fetch better prices. Getting the exact number of girls in the sex industry by force in Canada is difficult because the government stopped collecting and producing data on human trafficking in 2004. It means that the industry might be bigger than estimated, spanning over many countries in Europe and America.
Conclusion
As shown, human trafficking in Canada is still rife, many years after the abolition of slave trade. Also, the location and popularity of Canada as a decent place to live makes the slaves unsuspicious of what may happen to them. Perverts, Pedophiles, and sex abusers take advantage of this image of Canada to buy girls from other countries and put them in slavery. The problem is only second to drug trafficking, though most times the two crimes intersect a lot, in their implementation and nature. Ideally, a drug trafficker can easily be a human trafficker because the technicalities of the crimes are the same. On the flipside, corporate slavery affects thousands of people living in Canada. People who migrate to Canada willingly find themselves in hard situations, between a rock and a hard place, as they cannot negotiate for good salaries or get protection from the government on exploitation by large companies. In other cases, cartels out to make the most out of immigrant situations play the ‘big brother’ role, aid them in getting work permits and visa, then go ahead to exploit the by snatching everything they earn while working in Canada.
References
Attaran, A. (2010, December ). Sex slaves in Canada | literary review of Canada. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://reviewcanada.ca/magazine/2010/12/sex-slaves-in-canada/
Gresens, M. E. (2010). Review. Human Rights Quarterly, 32(2), 457–464. doi:10.2307/40783990
Press, T. A. (2016, June 1). Some slaves in the world were much higher than previously thought. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from Canada Business, http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/05/31/numbers-of-slaves-world-global-slavery-index_n_10224808.html
Public Service Alliance Canada. (2011). Temporary foreign workers program in Canada: Modern day slavery. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://psacnorth.com/temporary-foreign-workers-program-canada-modern-day-slavery
Stone, G. (2012, February 11). Canada’s shameful, modern-day slave trade. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.torontosun.com/2012/02/10/canadas-shameful-modern-day-slave-trade
Villa, M. (2013, October 18). They walk among us: Slavery in the 21st century takes many forms. Retrieved June 13, 2016, from http://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/they-walk-among-us-slavery-in-the-21st-century-takes-many-forms/article14924976/
