Transcript
>> HINOJOSA: Although slavery is
now banned in every country, our
next guest says that there are
27 million slaves living in the
world today.
Most are in Africa and Asia, but
thousands are among us here in
the United States.
Free the Slaves founder and
author Kevin Bales.
I'm Maria Hinojosa.
This is One on One.
Kevin Bales, you are the author
of Disposable People: New
Slavery in the Global Economy,
and you are cofounder of the
organization Free the Slaves.
And I'm sure when people hear
this they say, "Wait a second--
Kevin Bales is saying that there
are slaves, more slaves in the
world now than ever before?"
So help our audience understand
that, because I'll bet many of
them are just going to say, "I
don't believe that."
>> BALES: You know, Maria, there's a
certain paradox about this.
There are about, to the best of
our calculation, about 27
million people in the world in
slavery.
And you're right, that's double
the number that were taken out
of Africa in the entire 350
years of the transatlantic slave
trade.
But the paradox is that 27
million in today's global
population is the tiniest, the
smallest fraction, of the global
population to ever be in
slavery.
So it's large raw number, but
it's actually a very tiny
fraction of the global
population.
>> HINOJOSA: But does it still
mean that there are more now?
>> BALES: It's pretty easy to say,
because we're at 27 million,
that we have possibly more now
than we've ever had in history.
>> HINOJOSA: And you say that
slaves now are cheaper?
>> BALES: That's all about this global
population growth.
Because as the population went
from two billion up to almost
seven billion today, just in the
last 50 years, it's glutted the
market in the developing world
for slaves.
And what I mean by that is not
that, you know, we're breeding
more slaves, but that there are
so many people who are now so
vulnerable, so poor, and also
living in places where the rule
of law doesn't protect them.
And when the rule of law won't
protect you, it's easy for
people who have guns and
violence at their disposal to
take control of you.
And when they do, they can
enslave you.
And there's simply so many
people who are poor and
vulnerable who live where the
rule of law doesn't work--
something like six or seven
hundred million people in the
world.
>> HINOJOSA: So almost a
billion.
>> BALES: Almost a billion who are
potentially enslavable.
>> HINOJOSA: Which is really...
I mean, that's an extraordinary
number, and you basically say
they are vulnerable to becoming
slaves.
>> BALES: That's right.
>> HINOJOSA: So there are other
people who have other numbers.
There are people who also put
the numbers of estimates at
slaves now at about half of what
you say.
So where does that dispute...
and if these... I guess people
think that slavery is something
that is underground, hidden.
So how is it that you're able to
count people who are supposed to
be hidden, or is it that they're
hidden in plain sight?
>> BALES: No, no, no.
Some are hidden in plain sight,
but, you know, I have to
admit... and for anyone who
works in this area, these are
the best estimates we can come
up with.
They're not very strict counts.
I mean, we put these numbers
together, and the ILO had a
number... the International
Labor Office had a number that
was about half of the number
that we use.
But we all arrived at those
numbers in the same way, with
one single exception, which was
because the ILO is an
international governmental
organization, it's not allowed
to always publish its own
estimates.
Sometimes it's required to
publish the estimates given to
it by national governments.
So the ILO itself has published
another report that says, "We
think it's actually more, but
the government of India, for
example, insisted that we use
their official number, which
most people think is probably
one-tenth of what it actually
is."
>> HINOJOSA: Wow.
So give us...
>> BALES: You know how governments like
to say good things.
>> HINOJOSA: Well, give us a
sense about the countries that
you say are most problematic
right now.
Mauritania.
>> BALES: Well, Mauritania has a
significant proportion of its
population in slavery.
>> HINOJOSA: So the proportion
of the population in Mauritania?
>> BALES: Is maybe 15-25%.
>> HINOJOSA: Enslaved.
>> BALES: Enslaved.
But they have a long history of
hereditary slavery there.
>> HINOJOSA: But when you go,
for example, to Mauritania, or
someone else, let's just say,
are they going to see it?
Do they understand?
Do people understand what
they're seeing, and is part of
the work that you're doing in
Free the Slaves is to teach us
how to recognize what we need to
be looking for?
>> BALES: Absolutely
And it's interesting.
You go to Mauritania, you'd see
someone literally in rags.
Say a 12-year-old boy, literally
wearing rags.
Dirty, maybe scarred up, leading
by the hand a beautifully
dressed ten-year-old to take
them to school.
And you think, "Wait, what is
this, a servant?
Is this, like, the cousin nobody
likes?
I mean, what's going on here?"
But the fact of the matter is
this is one of the children of
the slave family that belongs to
the richer family that's sending
the kid to school.
>> HINOJOSA: And no one says
anything?
>> BALES: Well, not in those
communities, because it's normal
in those communities, absolutely
normal.
>> HINOJOSA: The first time
that... and I want to hear your
story of how you basically said
you wanted to stop being an
academic to become an
abolitionist.
But just say with me for a
second on Mauritania.
The first time that you went
there, and you saw something
like that, and you understood
this is not just, you know, a
worker who's poor, this is
legacy slavery, what went on for
you?
>> BALES: Well, I was... I wasn't
shocked, because I had been
prepared for this.
You know, I had spoken to people
who had been in slavery in
Mauritania before I ever went to
Mauritania.
So I had been prepared by their
descriptions.
But of course, it's a whole
nother thing when you get there
and you see it around you.
You go into a shop, and you
realize, "Oh, the person humping
the furniture around the back of
the furniture shop is a slave."
The person hammering a car wheel
out in front of a mechanic's
looks like... you realize by the
rags and by the scars, that's
almost undoubtedly a slave.
And when you see slavery as
ubiquitous, almost the way it
would have been in Alabama in
1850, it comes as a big shocker,
and you begin to have that sense
of a place which is saturated
with a kind of terror.
Because, of course, slavery
requires violence.
I mean, you don't have slavery
without violence.
And so you get that sense that
slavery's all... that terror
and that violence is right there
under the surface all the time.
>> HINOJOSA: So Mauritania is
the north of Africa.
It has a border with Morocco?
>> BALES: Morocco, Niger, Senegal at
the very bottom.
>> HINOJOSA: Senegal.
So does the government... what
does the government say?
>> BALES: Well, I have to... the good
news is we finally have a newly
elected government, and actually
elected, for the first time in a
long time in Mauritania.
And the government now is
beginning to bring into place an
antislavery program and plan.
That had happened with the
previous government that was...
there was the first democratic
election in, like, 50 years, and
a government came in that stayed
in about two years, and asked us
to help them write a plan for
the eradication of slavery in
the country.
And then there was a coup
d'etat, and the military took
over, and they've just gone out
about a year ago now.
So the Mauritanian government is
beginning to move in the right
directions, and that's
fantastic.
But it takes a long time,
because, like the United States
in 1865, with four million
people stepping out of slavery,
they need all kinds of support.
And the people in slavery in
Mauritania who are coming out
need all kinds of support.
And it's a very poor country.
>> HINOJOSA: So other places
that you believe the problem is
still quite huge-- Thailand?
>> BALES: It's large in Thailand, but
India is by far the country with
the largest raw number.
Now, of course, there are a
billion people living in India,
but the number of people in
slavery there could be north of
15 million.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, 15 million?
Okay, 15 million people is a
huge number.
And you've got a government that
is saying, "We recognize that we
have a problem, and we have
things in place on paper, but
actually changing it is going to
be..."
>> HINOJOSA: I think you've
described it very well.
They've known they had a problem
for a long time.
They've got a brilliant
antislavery law, one of the best
in the world.
>> HINOJOSA: You're kidding.
>> BALES: No.
>> HINOJOSA: On paper it
looks...
>> BALES: And if you can get them to
enforce it, it's fantastic.
It's what we should have had
here in 1865.
But in terms of the state
governments... you know how the
US has all these state
governments, and they can go
crazy if they need to or want
to?
Well, it works the same way in
India.
So state governments, some will
admit they have a problem and do
something about it.
Others are in denial.
So we're often fighting along in
situations where we're working
with groups that are helping
people out of slavery, but at
the same time we're having to
fight on two fronts-- once
against the slaveholders, and
once with, like, local police
and local officials who just
don't want the embarrassment.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, so before we
move into slavery here in the
United States, I just want our
audience to know about the other
places.
So Mauritania, India,
Thailand...
>> BALES: Thailand, Southeast Asia.
Pakistan has large numbers.
North and West Africa, really.
So we talked about Mauritania,
but you can come all the way
down the West African coast,
very significant numbers of
enslavement.
>> HINOJOSA: All right, now,
help our audience understand the
definition, because there is an
image in our country, and one
that, you know, in terms of the
media, popular culture... I
mean, I was reading your stuff,
and I was writing down... well,
Roots, you know?
That's the image that a certain
generation has.
>> BALES: Yeah, we hold in our mind a
picture from the 19th century.
>> HINOJOSA: Chained.
>> BALES: African Americans, cotton
fields.
And that was slavery at one
point in time in one particular
place in the world.
But, you know, slavery has taken
all these different forms
throughout all of human history.
>> HINOJOSA: So define it for...
>> BALES: But if you take all those
forms and you say, "What is the
core, what is the central
attributes of this," it always
amounts to the same thing-- one
person completely controls
another person.
They use violence to maintain
that control.
They use that control to exploit
them economically.
>> HINOJOSA: And that's it?
>> BALES: And they can't walk away.
They can't walk away.
>> HINOJOSA: So child
marriage...
>> BALES: Yes.
>> HINOJOSA: ...is also a form
of slavery?
>> BALES: Certainly there's... yeah,
child marriage on two or three
levels, not least because a
child is a minor who cannot give
their consent to what's going to
become sexual use and so forth.
And yeah, child marriage is even
defined by the United Nations,
along with forced marriage, as a
form of slavery.
>> HINOJOSA: And what about if
it's a child laborer who is
maybe living at home with his
family, but working... is
that... that doesn't...
>> BALES: Probably not.
>> HINOJOSA: Probably not.
>> BALES: I mean, there's an awful lot
of...
>> HINOJOSA: Could be abused on
the job, could be getting paid
badly.
>> BALES: The key question is, can that
child walk away?
Can their family pull them out,
even if it's into a worse
situation?
See, slaves have no choice.
So they can't even choose to
walk away and starve to death in
the gutter.
>> HINOJOSA: Do they recognize
that they are slaves?
Do they call themselves slaves?
Is there an understanding,
absolutely, "I'm a slave"?
>> BALES: Well, many... for many the
answer is yes, absolutely.
So say we're in Brazil, and
you're a young, poor worker,
you're from a slum area, and
then you get lured into a job
out West burning charcoal,
chopping down the Amazon.
And you get out there, but you
go out there because you think
you're going to get a good job.
But what happens when you get
there is that somebody pulls a
gun, they say, "You don't get
paid, I'm going to beat you up
right now, now we're going to
put you to work."
They understand they're in
slavery.
They get it, because they lived
in freedom.
But there are a lot of people in
the world today who are in
hereditary slavery, like
families in Mauritania, families
in Northern India.
And for them, you know, they've
actually said to me, "You know,
my family's always belonged to
that family, so we've always
worked for them, and this is...
you know, they give us food, and
we live."
And for them it's hard to
imagine a life in freedom,
because they've never had
freedom.
They've never been able to walk
away.
>> HINOJOSA: Do they
understand... in every situation
like that, have they been badly
treated?
>> BALES: Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: So even though they
say, "But my family has always
worked for this family," and
there's a relationship,
underlying is, "And we were
beaten at one time."
There's some kind of...
>> BALES: When women in Northern India
who are in enslaved families,
who have been enslaved for
generations, when they get an
antislavery worker come in and
talk to them for just a little
while, it's the women who lead
the families out of slavery.
And what they say to the women
antislavery workers, is, "I
don't want my daughters to be
raped the way I've been raped."
>> HINOJOSA: Yeah, it's very
crystal clear.
>> BALES: Yeah, it's crystal clear.
Because slavery for women, no
matter what the job is, picking
cotton, working in a brothel,
factory, you name it, means
sexual assault.
>> HINOJOSA: At one point or
another, it's going to...
>> BALES: Yeah, absolutely.
>> HINOJOSA: So Kevin, you now
have dual citizenship.
You're an American and a British
citizen.
And probably some people would
be surprised when they find out
that you actually grew up in the
middle of Oklahoma.
>> BALES: That's right.
>> HINOJOSA: And your first
experience of what you saw as a
child in Oklahoma between a
black family and your family...
>> BALES: Oh, well, when I was a tiny
boy, and...
>> HINOJOSA: But it planted the
seed.
>> BALES: It did.
I mean, stepping into, in Tulsa,
Oklahoma, a segregated lunch
line.
And I think I was, like, four.
And there was a family waiting
behind this little
velvet-covered rope to go in the
cafeteria line, but we were
white, so we were going to walk
right through.
But I had been to kindergarten.
I knew the rule-- first, first,
right?
They were there first.
So I took this rope down and
said, "Y'all go ahead," speaking
like an Okie.
And this father, you know, this
African American father, and my
father... you know, I can only
barely understand now what must
have gone on between those two.
>> HINOJOSA: And why does it
bring tears to your eyes to talk
about this moment, Kevin?
>> BALES: I think because I'm a father
now.
I think my innocence at the time
didn't help me to... I didn't
understand what was really going
on.
I look back now at my own
family, caught up in that horror
of racism, that terrible burden
that we carried, and both... I'm
both overjoyed that we put that
much of it behind, even though
we've got a long way to go, and
also just to imagine what that
had to feel like for those dads.
>> HINOJOSA: Do you... how often
do you kind of go back to that
place?
Because when you talk about the
work that you do... I found this
really interesting and very sad.
Because you said all
abolitionists, whether they
were, you know, Frederick
Douglass, or modern-day
abolitionists like you, there is
an emotional cost.
You talked about... I didn't
know that Fredrick Douglass had
had a breakdown, an emotional
breakdown.
Help us to understand, then.
You know, because people are
like, "I've got enough emotional
stuff going on in my life.
You want me to... I'm not going
to go there."
Help us to understand why...
>> BALES: Well, you can see, my work is
full of inspiration.
You know, when we see people
come out of slavery, which we
see every week-- we see people
coming out of slavery every
week-- you can't feel anything
but...
>> HINOJOSA: I'm just...
honestly, I'm stuck with that.
I'm just like... every week
you're able to document people
getting out of slavery?
>> BALES: Yeah.
We get photos being sent to us
from all of our field offices if
we're not there visiting.
And people are, you know,
saying, "Look, here's a family
who's out of slavery.
Here are 20 kids who are out of
slavery."
And I've got to say, you feel
pretty good at the end of the
week, right?
But at the same time, you see
things that are very hard, you
know, very tough, very ugly.
And some... and in some ways the
worst is when you can't do
something about it.
You know, if you see young
teenagers in a brothel, and you
know they're going to be raped
20 times that day, and they're
enslaved, and that their pimp's
going to beat them, and they may
not survive, and there's a good
chance they're going to have HIV
within a year, and you're trying
to get the work done to get in
there and make it right, but you
know you're not going to make it
before some are lost, and
that's... I don't... you know,
this is not unique to the kind
of work I do.
I think doctors face this, and
nurses face this, and
firefighters must face this
sometimes, these tough choices,
these tough challenges.
But it takes its toll, you know?
You have to have people around
you who understand, and you have
to have a place to ground
yourself.
>> HINOJOSA: And what do you do?
I mean, what do you do when you
get into that place of
desperation?
>> BALES: Personal desperation?
You know, I don't know if I get
desperate.
You know, it's not so much
desperate.
>> HINOJOSA: Sadness.
>> BALES: It's a kind of sadness, and
it's... and I have to step back
and say, "What have we done
that's worked?
What do we do that makes things
right?"
And concentrate on those things
that have been positive.
And of course, it makes you
redouble your efforts, you know?
You think, "Wow, if we had the
resources, we wouldn't be facing
this tragedy."
You know, if governments, even
our own government, actually
kept their promise when they
passed a law that said we are
not going to have slavery in our
country, it's banned, it's
abolished, if they actually kept
the promise they made when they
passed that law and said, "We're
actually going to put our money
where out mouth is," well,
things would be different.
>> HINOJOSA: So paint the
picture of what we need to be
looking at in terms of slavery
in our own country.
>> BALES: Here's a country who's led
the world in ideas and the
philosophy of freedom.
And yet we've probably got a
minimum of 40,000 people in this
country in slavery.
And we don't need it.
I mean, we can fix it.
We can absolutely fix this.
This could be the first
slave-free country in human
history if we just decided to
make that happen.
>> HINOJOSA: All right, I'm
going to stop you, because
you're saying 40,000 minimum...
>> BALES: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: ...of slaves...
>> BALES: In the United States.
>> HINOJOSA: ...existing in the
United States.
Well, what do we do when we see
it?
>> BALES: I think we see a lot of
slaves, but we don't see them.
They are hidden in plain sight.
I published a book with a
colleague last year, we called
it The Slave Next Door, because
it's about the fact that we have
slavery in the United States,
but people can't see it.
What they're doing is just under
half, as best we can figure, of
the people who are enslaved in
the United States are young
women enslaved into
prostitution, brought here from
all countries around the world,
but particularly Latin America,
China, Eastern Europe, and so
forth.
>> HINOJOSA: Any particular
geographical region?
>> BALES: There has now been a case, a
federal case, in every one of
the 50 states.
So we finally got one in North
Dakota, not that I wanted one.
But the concentrations are
around the edges.
So, you know, the Eastern
seaboard, the Western seaboard,
across the South, those are the
big concentrations.
But it tends to be everywhere.
After the women enslaved in
prostitution, the next highest
are domestic servants.
So again, usually young women,
enslaved as household servants.
And, you know, there have been
big cases near Boston and Long
Island.
>> HINOJOSA: Right, but most of
these people think, "Well,
again, that is a family that
came from a particular country,
and then they brought that
person."
And they're probably thinking,
"I don't know if I would ever be
able to see that, or if even..."
you know, there might be some
issues around that one, right?
>> HINOJOSA: Absolutely.
You know, and in our book, in
that Slave Next Door book, we
had a long interview with a
woman in Connecticut who was
talking about how she came to
suddenly realize that this
wonderful servant her neighbor
had was actually enslaved.
>> HINOJOSA: And who... like,
paint that picture.
What... this was...
>> BALES: Well, you know, it's like
they'd go for dinner, and this
person would... this young man
would be so subservient, I mean,
would just bring things on a
pillow, and it was just
fantastic, such a great cook.
>> HINOJOSA: And this is, like,
a white family that...
>> BALES: A white family in a very
upper middle class kind of
neighborhood who then brought in
a woman to mate with him, right?
The young man was from India.
Brought a woman from India.
But the amazing thing was, that
enslaved couple actually fell in
love, even though it was kind of
a fixed marriage.
And the neighbor began to
realize what was going on,
realized, "That guy's sleeping
in the basement, on the floor."
>> HINOJOSA: And did they call?
>> BALES: She helped them.
She talked to them.
She helped them escape, and got
them off to a job.
>> HINOJOSA: You actually say
that one of the things that's
amazing in the work that you do
is that slaves can be freed, or
have been freed, by human acts
of kindness and awareness.
>> BALES: In the United States, about a
third of all the people who come
out of slavery come out because
of good Samaritans-- citizens
who have got their eyes open,
who just take that moment and
say, "Honey, are you okay?"
>> HINOJOSA: And maybe ask that
question more than once.
>> BALES: Yeah.
>> HINOJOSA: So it's domestic
workers...
>> BALES: People in prostitution.
>> HINOJOSA: Trafficked women.
>> BALES: Agricultural workers.
>> HINOJOSA: Agricultural
workers.
How do you... I was just in
California, north of Los
Angeles, and I drive by, I see a
farm, and I see all of these
workers.
And I'm like, "My gosh, look at
all of the farm workers."
They're not invisible.
>> BALES: No, and they may not be in
slavery.
>> HINOJOSA: How do you know the
difference?
>> BALES: There you have to get up
close.
You know, the classic... ground
zero for slavery in agriculture
is really South Florida.
But it also happens in
California and other places.
But there you have work crew
after work crew after work crew
being pushed around in these old
school buses.
Some of the bosses pay them very
poorly and beat them up, but
they're not slaves.
Some of the bosses take total
control of their lives, use
violence to maintain it, and pay
them nothing, and don't let them
walk away.
>> HINOJOSA: So how is a good
Samaritan a good citizen?
What are they supposed to do in
that situation?
I mean, do they go and they say
to the employers, "I want to..."
I mean, what does one do?
>> HINOJOSA: I mean, the good
news is that there's a great
organization in South Florida.
A lot of the people who work in
that organization have been in
slavery and agriculture, and so
they're going out into the
fields, infiltrating and saying,
"What's it like with you guys?"
>> HINOJOSA: And that's the
Immokalee workers?
>> BALES: Yeah, the Immokalee Workers
Coalition.
And they're fantastic.
But us, what can we do?
We can say to Taco Bell and all
the other big retailers that use
vegetables, tomatoes, and
lettuce and like that from down
there, to say, "Let's work with
those NGOs and make sure your
products are clean."
>> HINOJOSA: You want people
calling, you want people writing
letters?
What do you want them doing when
they call up Burger King or
McDonald's or any of the...
>> BALES: Well, the first thing,
Immokalee workers... I know
that's a hard one to say.
>> HINOJOSA: I-M-O-K-A-L-E-E.
>> BALES: That's right.
That organization has organized
working with those food
companies, and there's a number
of companies who have now come
online, like Taco Bell, and they
do the right thing, and they
support that antislavery work.
But there are others that
haven't.
And you can look on their Web
site and figure it out.
>> HINOJOSA: Okay, before we end
up, there is something that...
probably a lot of us feel good
about the fact that we now can
eat dark chocolate and feel good
about it, right?
Because it's full of
antioxidants, and it's good for
us.
>> BALES: Sure.
>> HINOJOSA: So cocoa,
chocolate, what do we as
consumers in the United States
need to know about slavery?
>> BALES: Of course, the way to
guarantee that you don't have
child labor or child slavery or
slavery in your chocolate is to
eat fair trade chocolate.
That's the way to go, buy fair
trade.
But I also have to say the
chocolate companies in the
United States have been
bankrolling work on the ground
to try to work through this
problem.
It's a very complex problem, and
it's going to take a long time
to crack it, because there's 1.3
million cocoa farms in just
Ivory Coast and Ghana.
And they pump in about three
million dollars a year that a
foundation uses to try to deal
with the problem on the ground.
Now, progress has been made, but
I've got to tell you, it's not
enough.
We need more money and we need
more resources to really crack
this problem.
So there's still some slavery in
chocolate.
I hate to say it, but it's true.
>> HINOJOSA: And your final
message to our viewers-- do
what?
What do you want us to do?
>> BALES: Number one, read about it and
look at the Web site so you can
find out what's going on.
We can't solve a problem...
>> HINOJOSA: Freetheslaves.org?
>> BALES: Freetheslaves.net.
>> HINOJOSA: .net.
>> BALES: Freetheslaves.net, because we
can't solve problems we don't
understand.
But the other thing is, take
this one idea away-- we can
actually end slavery.
We're at this moment in history
where slavery can be brought to
an end globally.
It might take us 25 or 30 years,
but it can be stopped forever.
And wouldn't that be great, a
world without slavery?
>> HINOJOSA: Thank you, Kevin,
for opening up our eyes, making
us act.
>> BALES: Oh, it's been fun.
Thank you.
>> HINOJOSA: And thanks for all
your work.
Continue the conversation at
wgbh.org/oneonone.
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