Gospel for Asia: Scandal of 21st Century Slavery & Human Trafficking (Part 1)

Wills Point, Texas – GFA Special Report (Gospel for Asia) – Discussing the present day tragedy of modern slavery & human trafficking, where there are more slaves today than at any time in history.


Around 10 million people are currently behind bars somewhere in the world. Some have yet to face trial, a few have been wrongly convicted, but most are prisoners for a crime they have committed.

Meanwhile, four times as many people are being held against their will because of a crime committed against them—they are part of the global slave population estimated to be more than 40 million.

That number is higher than the entire population of Canada. Many of these victims are literally kept under lock and key, while others are effectively imprisoned by coercion, manipulation and extortion.

Slavery: Stronger Today than Ever

Slavery may long have been officially outlawed, but difficult though it may be to believe, numerically there are more slaves today than at any time in history.

Among them:
  • Twin brothers, Aimamo and Ibrahim, who at age 16 left grinding poverty in their native Gambia for what they hoped would be a better new life in Libya
  • Instead of well-paying jobs, they found themselves enduring beatings and threats as they labored on a farm alongside scores of other sub-Saharan Africans, locked in at night to keep them from escaping.
  • “A,” who was sent by her desperate mother to live with another family in Asia as a servant after the death of her father
  • Forced to work from morning to night cleaning dishes and washing clothes, the small girl was beaten and slapped when she didn’t keep up. And when she fell asleep one night while massaging the legs of her “owner,” the woman smeared chili powder into her eyes as punishment.
  • “K,” who was sold at age 5 by family friends and then taken to truck stops along route 80, one of the busiest interstate highways in the United States. 
There, anesthetized by drugs and alcohol, this little girl would be forced to knock on the doors of the trucks and sell herself to the drivers.


Total profits from this trade in slave labor are dwarfed only by sales of illegal drugs and illicit arms.

“Every country in the world is affected by human trafficking,” says the United Nations, “whether as a country of origin, transit, or destination for victims.”

So concerning is the issue that it is spotlighted by not one but two of the UN’s annual international awareness days.

The World Day Against Child Labor (June 12) highlights the plight of nearly 170 million children worldwide who have to work—half of them in “hazardous” situations—and whose number includes those in bonded labor. Though the number of working children has dropped significantly since the turn of the millennium, that pace of decline has “slowed considerably” in the past few years, says the International Labor Organization.

Meanwhile, children comprise a third of all victims of human trafficking, which is the focus of the World Day against Trafficking in Persons (July 30).


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