NPR had a review and interview with Benjamin Skinner and author who decided to go out and get first hand experience on what had been rumored….
Day to Day, March 11, 2008 · With $50 and a plane ticket to Haiti, one can buy a slave. This was just one of the difficult lessons writer Benjamin Skinner learned while researching his book, A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery.
Skinner met with slaves and traffickers in 12 different countries, filling in the substance around a startling fact: there are more slaves on the planet today than at any time in human history. Skinner speaks with Anthony Brooks about his experience researching slavery.
Though now illegal throughout the world, slavery is more or less the same as it was hundreds of years ago, Skinner explains. Slaves are still “those that are forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond sustenance.”
Something disturbing has changed however — the price of a human. After adjusting for inflation, Skinner found that, “In 1850, a slave would cost roughly $30,000 to $40,000 — in other words it was like investing in a Mercedes. Today you can go to Haiti and buy a 9-year-old girl to use as a sexual and domestic slave for $50. The devaluation of human life is incredibly pronounced.”
[NPR]
I get a lot of book suggestions passed to me. And I do like them. But this suggestion is the first I’m passing on, without first reading. The linked NPR article does have a short excerpt from the first chapter… and it’s a style of writing I do like. The facts alone are interesting. But the message is sobering. However much we have changed… society hasn’t.
Tags: Book Review, Books, Legal, Review, Society
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