We Need to Talk About Modern-Day Slavery

In his annual State of the Union address last week, President Obama began his foreign policy focus by saying, “If there’s one thing this new century has taught us, it’s that we cannot separate our work at home from challenges beyond our shores.” 

Unfortunately, an insidiously prevalent challenge and hugely profitable crime facing the world — modern slavery and human trafficking — was not mentioned in the President’s list of current global concerns facing the U.S. on Tuesday night. To be fair, he has given a major address on the topic before. But no president has ever raised the issue in his big annual address.

That needs to change.

Incidentally, the President just finished a multi-day trip to India, home to almost one-half of the world’s enslaved people. In a surprise and welcome development, he brought up the topic in his last speech there — a pointed one on human rights — saying, “Together, we can stand up against human trafficking and work to end the scourge of modern-day slavery.”  

Raising the issue in this context is an important step in naming the problem. Indeed, one of our country’s most effective tools for fighting slavery — the State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons report — consistently pulls its punches specifically on India, declining to hold them fully accountable for the massive level of human exploitation there. Given India’s size and wealth, our larger foreign policy apparatus deems it more important to avoid “risking” other geopolitical concerns with the diplomatic fallout that could come from telling the truth on slavery. 

That needs to change.

The estimated number of men, women, and children brutally exploited by others for labor or sex currently stands at almost 36 million worldwide. No country is untouched by this human rights crisis. The perpetrators pocket a collective $150 billion annually, a rapid rise making it the second most profitable global criminal enterprise. Comparatively, the amount the United States spends on combating this crime that doesn’t add up to pocket change.

That needs to change.

Part of President Obama’s visit to India involved joining the major celebration of that country’s Republic Day, marking when India’s constitution took hold. The world’s largest democracy should rightly and robustly mark the time it became unburdened from the yoke of colonialism, a history and sentiment that American’s certainly share and can understand.  However, the persistence of slavery within our respective borders after Declarations of Independence is also something we share with India — and many other countries.

This year marks the 150^th anniversary of the full congressional passage and national ratification of the 13^thamendment, officially abolishing slavery in the United States. The key difference between 1865 and now is that slavery today is illegal everywhere, including India. The gaps to abolishing it lie in the multiple fissures that exist where the rule of law isn’t sufficiently enforced in the justice system “pipeline.” Proven solutions exist for enforcing the law in diverse contexts and stamping out slavery. What is needed is a dramatic scaling up of resources to bring these models to bear. What is needed is the prayer, faith and action to generate the political will to do these things.

And this year, key members of Congress are increasingly seized with the urgency to do just that — thanks in large part to the pressure and prayers from their Christian constituents.  They are all realizing that our country can and must be doing more to eradicate slavery in the 21^st century. Among them, the new chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, has scheduled one of his very first hearings to focus specifically on modern slavery and human trafficking. Many people of faith, myself included, are eager to hear his plans there on February 4.

Powerful new legislation and funding goals addressing modern slavery are expected from this Congress in the months ahead. Americans, with our values of professing liberty for all and our own complicated history with slavery, must be vocal supporters of these efforts. Those compelled by the story and spirit of Jesus are often the ones leading the way in pushing for these bills to become law. Our prayers and advocacy have built this momentum — and will go even further in 2015.

Partisan politicians would have us believe there are no points of agreement between the new Congress and the President after his stated State of the Union plans. However, if the issue had been raised last week, modern slavery would not be a point of contention.  Ending it together in 2015 and the years ahead is something we all must believe in, pray for, and act on.

The Rev. Jason Butler is the Lead Pastor of Transformation City Church in Milwaukee, WI, founder and president of Exploit No More and author of Dangerous Presence: Following Jesus into the City.