Talk:Slavery in the 21st century

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Purpose of this page

• Good article, I like it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.172.96.234 (talk) 04:19, 18 February 2012 (UTC)

In response to the below criticism I have deleted much of this article and moved most of the rest. This page should now be used as a child article for Slavery, pertaining only to its contemporary aspects. K. the Surveyor (talk) 18:33, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

Really? This sounds like this was written by an 8th grader. Delete. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.116.226.138 (talk) 02:55, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

this is a bleedin' awful article.

-- yes, copy and pasted, probarbly from US government documents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Opmcclellan (talk • contribs) 21:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

ok, copy and pasting can be forgivin but not even adding a personal opinion and some self found facts is a bit dim, and also there should be links to the main website. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bookfinder612 (talk • contribs) 19:49, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

It reads like someones high school paper. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.251.185.100 (talk) 16:32, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

terrible, just terible —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.97.243.208 (talk) 01:47, 12 May 2010 (UTC)

delete the entire thing; better to have no article at all than to have this garbage mucking up wikipedia —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.126.36.13 (talk) 20:21, 25 July 2010 (UTC)

Socialism

I'm really sorry, OP but this article is incomplete and is mostly just socialist talking points. 24.227.222.9 (talk) 05:38, 11 February 2014 (UTC)gangreneday

This could certainly use some work but it is not "just socialist talking points." Bryan Caplan is no socialist! And even Republicans are coming around and discussing the issue, e.g. Noem in South Dakota. — Preceding unsigned comment added by AlexanderHamiltonRulz (talk • contribs) 01:52, 14 March 2014 (UTC)

"Socialist" presumably refers mainly to the Wage Labour section (a libertarian, of course, would argue that the alternative to wage labor would quickly drive off the boss, and require some other form of slavery, in an attempt to keep a much-diminished paycheck coming). Art LaPella (talk) 22:23, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

The section on Wage Labor attempts to redefine the term "slavery" from a non-neutral Marxist perspective to include free workers under capitalist systems. The sections within this article should all work from the common definition of slavery as given on the Wikipedia Slavery main article.

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"The females are forced into lives whose main purpose is to serve their husbands. This oftentimes fosters an environment for physical, verbal and sexual abuse" ---------How is this different from regular marriage? This is obviously political spin.---------- Dave — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:300A:D09:F500:543C:7294:83B:61F0 (talk) 18:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Arabian peninsula

I feel this article doesn't acknowledge the extent of contemporary slavery in the Arabian peninsula and nearby (Saudi Arabia, UAE, Oman, Yemen, Djibouti). These are historic centers of slavery and at least until the 1960s witnesses report slave auctions. There is no doubt that there is still widespread slavery there today. 144.131.209.126 (talk) 02:06, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

Removal of content

185.73.37.82, would you care to explain your removal of sourced material in greater detail? I'm not sure why exactly you did it. Dschslava ^Δx parlez moi 19:45, 30 July 2016 (UTC)

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CrissieLuckey (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)== Article title ==

The term "modern slavery" is much more prevalent than "contemporary slavery" - I would suggest the article title should be changed to "Modern slavery" - BobKilcoyne (talk) 04:19, 20 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree that the title should be changed to a more common phrase that will indicate article contents address various forms of slavery in today's societies. I'd suggest "Neo-Slavery" with "Contemporary" and "Modern" prefixes listed on a discombobulation page.CrissieLuckey (talk) 15:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)

Requested move 11 July 2018

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Not moved. There is no clear consensus to move the article at this time. Although there are well-reasoned arguments on both sides, a well-articulated concern is expressed that "Modern" may be ambiguous to the rather large collection of time periods that are considered "Modern" for various purposes. This also weakens the "common name" argument. I note in particular that is possible to find sources referencing "modern slavery" that were published in the 19th century. See, e.g., William Brodie, Modern Slavery, and the Slave Trade, a Lecture, Vol. 5 (1850), p. 1: "Modern slavery may be dated from the year when the famous proposal of La Casas was accepted by the Emperor Charles"; Sir Arthur Helps, "Improvement of the condition of the rural poor", Friends In Council, Book 2 (1849), p. 262: "If modern slavery were anything like Jewish slavery, there would have been, comparatively speaking, but little need of abolitionists to moot the subject". bd2412 T 15:58, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

Contemporary slavery → Modern slavery – Modern slavery is a more common phrase, I proposed the idea on 20 June, no discussion has arisen BobKilcoyne (talk) 18:44, 11 July 2018 (UTC) --Relisting. Anarchyte (work | talk) 08:00, 22 July 2018 (UTC)

• Supportעם ישראל חי (talk) 19:08, 11 July 2018 (UTC) per below עם ישראל חי (talk) 15:59, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support per WP:COMMONNAME. Rreagan007 (talk) 21:46, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• "Modern" can relate to any number of periods, as old as centuries ago. Compared with "modern", "contemporary" seems more clear. Dekimasuよ! 23:21, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose per WP:PRECISE ("...Titles should be precise enough to unambiguously define the topical scope of the article..." [my emphasis]). The proposed title does not reflect the contents of the article. According to the Wikipedia modern history article introduction, the modern period begins around AD 1500, while the contemporary period begins around 1945. The cases in this article go back barely 20 years. I also ask the nominator and Users:AmYisroelChai and Rreagan007 to justify their support considering the potential ambiguity resulting from a move. —  AjaxSmack  00:09, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• I think you are mistakenly conflating two different things together just because they both use the term "modern" in them. The term "modern slavery" does not mean that it is all slavery that took place during Modern history anymore than Modern philosophy or Modern art or Modern architecture include all philosophy, art, or architecture that took place during modern history. Rreagan007 (talk) 01:29, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• Modern philosophy begins, "Modern philosophy is philosophy developed in the modern era and associated with modernity.... The 17th and early 20th centuries roughly mark the beginning and the end of modern philosophy. How much of the Renaissance should be included is a matter for dispute; likewise modernity may or may not have ended in the twentieth century and been replaced by postmodernity. How one decides these questions will determine the scope of one's use of 'modern philosophy.'" In other words, the term is both broad and vague. Dekimasuよ! 02:37, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• Regardless, "modern slavery" is the term for this topic that most sources use. It is therefore the WP:COMMONNAME and should therefore be the article's title. "Modern slavery" gets 16.6 million hits on Google while "contemporary slavery" only gets 59.5 thousand. Rreagan007 (talk) 04:19, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

• It's not clear to me that those hits reliably refer to this topic. The first two pages of Google Books results for "modern slavery" include hits for books written in 1840, 1850, and 1906. Then there's a hit for Stalin's Slave Camps. Dekimasuよ! 09:03, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose on the same grounds as AjaxSmack. A disambiguation that introduces another ambiguity is a failure.  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ 😼  01:43, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
• Oppose, per above discussion. "Contemporary" means happening right now, in present time. 'Modern slavery' already redirects here, so no reader is lost. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:24, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support: per WP:COMMONNAME; the change recommended is not just about whether modern or contemporary is the preferred adjective, nor just a question of the number of hits, as helpfully identified by Rreagan007. The nature of those references e.g. legislation (Modern Slavery Act 2015 in UK and proposed in Australia, Modern Slavery Register (see https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/uk-modern-slavery-act-registry), corporate Modern Slavery Statements e.g. those issued by Virgin Trains and Asda-Walmart, Global Slavery Index e.g. https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/country/united-states/ etc. show that Modern Slavery is the standard terminology in use. - BobKilcoyne (talk) 02:25, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
• Support - goodness sakes, let's be reasonable. "Modern" means "within recent history"; there is no way to interpret the phrase "modern slavery" in a normal human mind and have the result be "oh yeah, when France took those slaves from Africa to Haiti in the 1600s. Red Slash 11:48, 16 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. I would suppose that the interpretation of "modern" hinges upon what it is being used in contradistinction to. We have Slavery in antiquity. Medieval slavery redirects, somewhat dubiously, to Slavery in medieval Europe. Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom has a "modern timeline" running from 1500 to 1799 and a "contemporary timeline" for everything after 1800. It is not the case that "a normal human mind" need be unaware of the terms Early modern period or Modernity, so this comment has led me to go ahead and oppose the move. Dekimasuよ! 08:59, 17 July 2018 (UTC)

• Oppose. Quite independently of AgaxSmack, I went looking for what "modern" means, and the best I came up with relates to Modern history. Core modern history = 1800-1950. Early modern = 1500-1800. Dropping the "history" from "modern history" probably really means including 1950-2018. Better to go with a date range, eg Slavery, since 1950. Ref 1 appears to speak to 2009-2012 with a contrast to 200 years previous. Ref 2 speaks to 2013-2014. Ref 3 refers as far back as 1981. Overall, the article suffers from WP:OR, it really needs to be tied to some quality reviewing secondary sources as opposed to fact picking from news sources, sources commenting on the "now" of the time of writing. Newspapers, journal articls, government and NGO websites aren't the best for the foundations of this topic. I recommend going to published books, as they tend to take a more distant perspective. Try https://www.google.com/search?q=contemporary+slavery&tbm=bks and https://www.google.com/search?q=modern+slavery&tbm=bks& See what books work best, and go for the terms used by the best source for broad coverage. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:49, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

A skim of the results suggests to me that "modern-day slavery" might be the good. "Modern" sounds like "Modern history" with "history" dropped, like "ancient versus modern". "More common" is not good enough a rationale, it should be knee-jerk opposed per WP:TITLECHANGES. A more comprehensive review of the topic, including a re-grounding in better sources, is the way to go, before making a better justified proposal to fiddle the title. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:54, 25 July 2018 (UTC)

This alternative seems like a possibility to me. Dekimasuよ! 18:31, 30 July 2018 (UTC)

• Support. There is no real accepted definition of what forms the "modern" period. There is a clear preference for "Modern Slavery" in reliable governmental, news, and NGO sources, such as Anti-Slavery International, the UK government, the BBC, The Guardian, the United Nations, the US State Department, The New York Times. All featuring the term as headline and in text. I note that Slavery in the 21st Century is an option if this can't be agreed upon. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 20:34, 29 July 2018 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Requested move 2 August 2018

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: Moved. (non-admin closure) The Duke of Nonsense^{What is necessary for thee?} 12:36, 9 August 2018 (UTC)

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Contemporary slavery → Slavery in the 21st century – More precise than "Contemporary" or "Modern". More defined than "modern-day". It is a title used by other Encyclopedias such as Britannica. Some useful arguments were presented in the RM above and this proposal is based on that. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 16:55, 2 August 2018 (UTC)Capitalisation corrected. — Frayæ (Talk/Spjall) 18:17, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

• Support move to Slavery in the 21st century (note capitalization change). As noted above, "contemporary" is inadequate here. ONR (talk) 18:14, 2 August 2018 (UTC)

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The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page or in a move review. No further edits should be made to this section.

Section on socialist theories of "wage slavery"- inappropriate for article?

I think having an extended section on socialist "wage slavery" theories is inappropriate for this article. The theory of wage slavery already has its own page, and this article is supposed to be about humans living in actual bondage- not socialist theories about how a poor worker might live a life akin to bondage. The section itself even acknowledges in the last paragraph that they aren't the same thing! This section is also very poorly sourced and uses very politicized language in some instances. For all these reasons I think it is inappropriate for the article. An offhand mention, for example "Some socialist philosophers have critiqued wage labor as akin to slavery, calling it wage slavery", would be sufficient. It keeps the focus of the article on the modern practice of involuntary bondage, while allowing interested readers to click the link if they want to learn more. That would be a good way to both acknowledge the theory while keeping the article focused.Jogarz1921 (talk) 03:46, 21 January 2019 (UTC)

• I must say including theories on a page such as this seems out-of-line.Michael E Nolan (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

Conscription

Including military conscription in the description of government-forced labor seems inappropriate. While some people think conscription is immoral (I, for example, burned my draft card during the U.S. War Against Vietnam), but it is a very different type of forced labor than working on a farm or a mine.Michael E Nolan (talk) 21:39, 13 October 2019 (UTC)

North Koreans in Poland

They have been trafficked many times.

See https://www.dw.com/en/dutch-shipbuilder-in-dock-over-north-koreans-polish-slave-claims/a-47502242

and Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-lawsuit-trafficking-exclu/exclusive-north-korean-worker-seeks-dutch-shipbuilders-prosecution-over-labor-abuses-idUSKCN1ND1BR?&ampcf=1

Let us add Poland here. Zezen (talk) 22:35, 18 November 2019 (UTC)

Inaccurate map

Judging by the map, seems Greece has a much worse problem of slavery than Turkey or China for example. I couldn't find the data that produced this map, but to me it seems highly inaccurate, or it's depicting something else, not modern slavery. Infestdead (talk) 22:37, 12 November 2020 (UTC)

I concur that this map seems highly inaccurate and should be removed untill an actuate source can be found. Scphyle (talk) 05:40, 15 April 2021 (UTC)

Walk Free Geographical Infographic

Towards the end of this article, the penal slavery (prison labor) section discusses slavery in the United States, China, North Korea, the United Kingdom, and Australia. However, the geographical infographic at the top of the page claims that the US, Australia, and the UK are mostly uninvolved in slavery. However, the US has the highest prison population in the world, with approximately 0.7% of the population incarcerated according to prisonpolicy.org. That would, according to this graph, color the USA a reddish orange. There should be a different graph that differentiates legal slavery from illegal slavery, that would make this article more clear. TLDR: using just the Walk Free Foundation graph would be misleading because it only seems to account for not all types of forced labor. Houglar (talk) 02:21, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Photo of little girl

There is a photo of a little girl on India. It's showed as "own work". Adds nothing to the article and does not appear to be consensual. Should be deleted. Halvenvideo (talk) 16:35, 24 October 2022 (UTC)

Removal of entire section

There may have been some reasons for this edit, back in 2016 (for one, the title of the section was likely inappropriate), but I feel it should have been discussed first. The information was relevant and apparently accurate. One could have considered moving it to other articles and leaving a shorter section in this one. --Pegasovagante (talk) 05:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Out of date image

The map from the Walk Free foundation shown as the first image in the article is either out of date or falsified and having searched for the 2019 map I can find no source other than this article. Here is a link with an up to date map https://downloads.walkfree.org/gsi2023/data-maps.pdf

The '2019 map' should be removed as it is radically different from the current picture, especially in regards to several countries in the Arabian peninsula. RJS87 (talk) 11:38, 30 November 2023 (UTC)

"institutional slavery"

The lede says "contemporary slavery" refers specifically to institutional slavery, but the article then goes on to talk about non-institutional slavery. Eldomtom2 (talk) 19:16, 19 February 2024 (UTC)

irrelevant image

The image titled "the slave market" by Gerome should be deleted since it is irrelevant in an article about slavery in 21st century 2A02:E0:C917:600:1000:F31D:3D87:CBA1 (talk) 05:08, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

You seem to have point. Quite a few images seem to be from previous century besides not sure about how far it's appropriate to use a child's image. Bookku (talk) 13:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

I agree that the image is not really relevant to the article. I do think the article would benefit from creating a contrast between older forms of slavery which were formally and legally sanctioned and the kind of illicit and hidden slavery prevalent in the 21st century. Elmmapleoakpine (talk) 15:41, 10 May 2024 (UTC)

The next image 'The Child Slaves of Britain' is from 1888 Matchgirls' strike, which is irrelevant to slaverybin the 21st century. Both of them should probably go. Contrasting the changes in slavery would be a good addition if there are sources for it. -- LCU ActivelyDisinterested «@» °∆t° 21:51, 13 May 2024 (UTC)

Some one has seem to have noted concern over Talk:Slavery in the 21st century#Photo of little girl on 24 October 2022 on this talk page. WP:IMAGEPOL#Moral issues - Examples - Normally do require consent- mentions "An identifiable child".

For other images relevance issues discussed above WP:IMAGEDD seem to suggest having relevant images only. Bookku (talk) 09:33, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Help requested at WT:FFD. Bookku (talk) 09:50, 29 May 2024 (UTC)

Silly map

The axes are labelled "high" and "low". This isn't very informative. Should be labelled with numbers

Pinging the uploader: @SurrogateSlav: Koopinator (talk) 16:26, 30 August 2024 (UTC)