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ABSTRACT
MAKING “SLAVERY” WORK
Karen E. Bravo
For whom does “slavery” work? Who benefits from the making “slavery” work?
The term “slavery” is proclaimed and heard everywhere: “modern slavery,” “modern day
slavery,” “modern forms of slavery,” and “contemporary forms of slavery.”
Uses of the term no longer arise from celebratory invocations of the 19th century legal
prohibition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Africans and of chattel slavery by the United
Kingdom, the United States, and other Western powers. Instead, the popular contemporary use
of the term is said to reflect the emergence of a “new” form of exploitation that is similar to, yet
different from, the slavery of the past.
This paper will explore how “slavery” works. The issues addressed include: (1) What are the
origins of and reasons for the contemporary resurgence in the use of the term? (2) What goals
are sought or achieved by “slavery’s” use in the public sphere? (3) Identification of the contexts
and mechanisms of the use. (4) Who benefits, and who loses, from the widespread use.
In exploring those issues, the paper addresses “slavery” as legal definition which is in the process
of being re-worked into a concept which captures shock-inducing exploitation; and “slavery” as
tool of anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation activists.
KEYWORDS: Slavery, human trafficking, exploitation
MAKING “SLAVERY” WORK

Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Graduate Studies and International Affairs, Indiana University Robert H.
McKinney School of Law.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART I – INTRODUCTION
PART II – THE CONTEMPORARY RE-EMERGENCE OF “SLAVERY”
PART III – BENEFITS AND HARMS OF “SLAVERY”
PART IV – MAKING “SLAVERY” WORK
CONCLUSION
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MAKING “SLAVERY” WORK
INTRODUCTION
In the global fight against human exploitation, the misuse of the term “slavery” detracts from
understanding of both contemporary and past exploitation, and undermines the potential
effectiveness of anti-exploitation initiatives. In identifying an “evil” we fail to perceive the
elephant in the room – namely, the mundanity of the exploitation, as well as the invisible
participation of governments, vested interests, and average persons, all of whom are
beneficiaries.
Today, the term “slavery” is proclaimed and heard everywhere: “modern slavery,” “modern day
slavery,” “modern forms of slavery,” and “contemporary forms of slavery.”
Uses of the term no longer arise from celebratory invocations of the 19th century legal
prohibition of chattel slavery and of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in Africans by the United
Kingdom, the United States, and other Western countries. Instead, the contemporary uses of the
term attempt to “name” the emergence of a “new” form of exploitation that is similar to, yet
different from, the slavery of the past.1
There are many examples of this trend:
1
See, e.g., Kevin Bales, ENDING SLAVERY: HOW WE FREE TODAY’S SLAVES (2007). Bales diagnoses modern
slavery which, in his view, is characterized by the cheapness and disposability of today’s slaves. Id. at 12.
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Pope Francis, in his first message to the world in 2015, condemned modern slavery.2 The Pontiff
stated that:
Today, as in the past, slavery is rooted in a notion of the human person which allows him
or her to be treated as an object…. Whether by coercion or deception, or by physical or
psychological duress, human persons created in the image and likeness of God are
deprived of their freedom, sold and reduced to being the property of others. They are
treated as means to an end.3
Among the types of “slavery” listed by the Pontiff in that speech were: forced prostitution,
coerced or exploitative labor, migrant workers, child soldiers, individuals trafficked for organs,
and persons held and exploited by terrorist groups.4
The activist community also makes frequent use of the word. For example, Walk Free
Foundation, a well-funded international NGO,5 in its 2014 Global Slavery Index, announced
that: “Around the world today, there are an estimated 35.8 million men, women and children
trapped in modern slavery.”6
The language of slavery is also used in contemporary legislation: For example, in 2015, the
United Kingdom enacted the Modern Slavery Act 2015.7 The Modern Slavery Act creates an
2
See Message of His Holiness, Pope Francis, for the Celebration of the World Day of Peace, Jan. 1, 2015 available
at https://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/messages/peace/documents/papa-francesco_20141208_messaggioxlviii-giornata-mondiale-pace-2015.html.
3
Id.
4
Id. (emphasis added)
5
The organization was founded by Australian billionaire Andrew Forest. See Janie A. Chuang, Exploitation Creep
and the Unmaking of Human Trafficking Law 108 AJIL 609, 627 (2014).
6
See Walk Free Foundation, 2014 Global Slavery Index, available at http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/.
7
The text of the legislation is available here:
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2015/30/contents/enacted/data.htm. The legislation was first introduced in the
House of Parliament in 2013; it became law on March 1, 2015. See http://services.parliament.uk/bills/201415/modernslavery.html (U.K. House of Parliament website that tracks the status of legislation across time.)
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Anti-Slavery Commissioner, whose duties include, among other things, “the prevention,
detection, investigation and prosecution of slavery and human trafficking offences.”8
Lastly, the news media also freely uses the term “slavery” to refer to the types of exploitation
that fall within the international definition of “human trafficking” which was adopted in 2000.9
For example, CNN and NPR, the U.S. news media outlets, have described as “slavery” the
exploitation of workers discovered on a remote Indonesian island and held in exploitative
conditions without freedom of movement.10 The CNN report noted “the problem of modern day
slaves fishing for seafood that ends up on dinner plates on the other side of the world ….”11
“Slavery” is a loaded term. Is it possible to use “slavery” in a way that is not exploitative of: (i)
contemporary victims, by stigmatizing them with the status of “slave;” (ii) descendants of
historic slavery by undermining, minimizing, or losing sight of their ancestors’ exploitation and
the contemporary descendants’ ongoing experience of inequality?12 (iii) civil society, if
resources are steered toward or dedicated only to the most egregious or eye-catching forms of
exploitation, leaving unaddressed potentially more prevalent forms.
8
See Modern Slavery Act 2015, Section 40 and 41(1)(a) (emphasis added). Note that the legislation distinguishes
between human trafficking and slavery.
9
See Article 3(a) of the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially
Women and Children (hereinafter, “the UN Trafficking Protocol”), defining “human trafficking” as:
[T]he recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of
force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position
of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person
having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation..
10
See Dean Irvine, Saima Mohsin, and Kocha Olarn, Seafood from slavery: Can Thailand tackle the crisis in its
fishing industry?, CNN, May 11, 2015, available at http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/11/asia/freedom-project-thailandfishing-slave-ships/; NPR, Was Your Seafood Caught By Slaves? AP Uncovers Unsavory Trade, NPR, March 27,
2015, available at http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2015/03/27/395589154/was-your-seafood-caught-by-slavesap-uncovers-unsavory-trade.
11
Id.
12
Kevin Bales, DISPOSABLE PEOPLE: NEW SLAVERY IN THE GLOBAL ECONOMY 9 (2004) (“There are more slaves
alive today than all the people stolen from Africa in the time of the transatlantic slave trade.”). This potential for
exploitation is particularly relevant in cases of race-based slavery, where group stigmatization may continue and
may be the foundation of a global racial hierarchy, where use of “slavery” may end the conversation, not leaving
open avenues for redress.
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So, how does “slavery” work? And can we improve the effectiveness of “slavery?” The
exploration undertaken for this paper distinguishes between “slavery,” the act, system, and
status, versus the term “slavery”. In this paper I focus on the work performed and the uses made
of the term, not on the status or relationship of enslavement.
Part II of this paper discusses the contemporary re-emergence of “slavery,” summarizing the
goals of the contemporary use, and giving examples of the contexts and mechanisms of the
contemporary use. Part III explores the harms and benefits of the new practice, while Part IV
offers conditions pursuant to which “slavery” can “work” more effectively.
PART II
THE CONTEMPORARY RE-EMERGENCE AND EVOLUTION OF “SLAVERY”
Until only little more than a decade ago, uses of the word “slavery” referred to previous eras’
exploitative relationships and legal systems. Such references were accompanied by conventional
confidence about the triumphal progress in human conditions which had eliminated such
shameful acts from the contemporary era. At most, recognized forms of exploitation were
spoken of in terms of “slavery-like” conditions and/or of individual bad actors operating under
cloak of secrecy away from the public gaze and from the reach of the law.
So strong is the prohibition against slavery, that the prohibition has attained the status of ius
cogens norm in the international sphere.13
This means that states attempting to create or re-
create a system of slavery through treaty or other instruments, would be unable to do so as a
13
A ius cogens norm is one which permits of no derogation by states.
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legal matter. The prohibition against slavery is contained in international treaties, international
customary norms, and domestic legislative prohibitions.
Today, “slavery” is used to label widespread and omnipresent systems of exploitation. These
appear to exist, in a fraught duality of openness and secrecy: “hidden” from the eyes of society,
yet existing in plain sight.14 The inherently contradictory result is that, although slavery is
prohibited pursuant to international law, and under the domestic laws of the majority of
countries, it is seen and known to exist everywhere.15
Reasons for Re-emergence of the Term
The new use stems from (1) the shock of “first responders” who became newly aware of the
widespread nature and severity of the scope of the contemporary forms of exploitation, for whom
readily accessible images of the most exploitative relationship were the mental pictures of the
trans-Atlantic trade and New World slavery, and (2) the instrumentalist reality that the shock and
revulsion evoked by the term “slavery” and the imagery of slavery offered a powerful, if crudely
formed, tool for anti-exploitation efforts. It seems a perfect pairing: the first responders
harnessed their shock and, determined to combat the exploitation they had witnessed, brought to
bear the most powerful tools at their command: the label “slavery.”
Users resort to the term (1) because of a sense of outraged recognition and shock about the
contemporary existence/re-emergence of such exploitation, especially as more shocking and
sensationalist details emerge; desire to harness the power of the word and to direct it against
exploiters; and to express disapprobation and outrage against both the exploiters and the
complacency of the public.
14
See Sarah Maslin Nir, The Price of Nice Nails, THE NEW YORK TIMES, May 7, 2015 (describing the exploitation
of nail salon workers in New York City).
15
See Walk Free Foundation, 2014 Global Slavery Index, supra note 6.
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As a result, the contemporary references to “slavery” target domestic servitude, sex trafficking,
migrant workers, and other similar types of exploitation.16 However, these types of exploitation
differ in fundamental respects from the slavery to which the term has traditionally referred.
Therefore, “slavery” today appears to refer to something different from the slavery of the past
and, moreover, the term “slavery” is in the process of a conceptual evolution or transformed into
other uses.
“Slavery” Evolves
How did a term that referred to a corrosive property relationship founded in, created and
enforced by legal, social, and cultural institutions, and which was believed to be extinct, come to
apply to the often illegal and, for the most part, sub rosa exploitative relationships that users of
the term address today?
Review of existing definitions and comparison of contemporary uses demonstrate that reworking. Although attempts to define slavery can lead to heated debates,17 there is general
consensus that traditional slavery was “chattel slavery.”18
That slavery shared a number of characteristics: Firstly, traditional slavery existed within a
temporal framework during which the exploitation referred to was openly framed and enforced
by institutions of the society. Slaveries of the past were created and structured by positive law,
16
See, e.g., the situations described in Part I, supra. See also Kevin Bales, ENDING SLAVERY: HOW WE FREE
TODAY’S SLAVES (2007); E. Benjamin Skinner, A CRIME SO MONSTROUS: FACE-TO-FACE WITH MODERN-DAY
SLAVERY (2008); Susan Tiano and Moira Murphy-Aguilera with Brianne Bigej (eds.), BORDERLINE SLAVERY:
MEXICO, UNITED STATES, AND THE HUMAN TRADE (2012).
17
See, e.g., Kevin Bales, PROFESSOR KEVIN BALES’S RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR ORLANDO PATTERSON and Orlando
Patterson, REJOINDER: PROFESSOR ORLANDO PATTERSON’S RESPONSE TO PROFESSOR KEVIN BALES, both in THE
LEGAL UNDERSTANDING OF SLAVERY: FROM THE HISTORICAL TO THE CONTEMPORARY, Jean Allain (ed.) 360-72 and
373-74 (2012)
18
For example, influential historian David Brion Davis notes that, “[t]raditional definitions of slavery have stressed
that the slave’s person is the chattel property of another man or woman, and thus subject to sale and other forms of
transfer . . .” See David Brion Davis, INHUMAN BONDAGE: THE RISE AND FALL OF SLAVERY IN THE NEW WORLD 30
(2006).
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and were enforceable pursuant to law and by the legal and governmental institutions such as law
enforcement, and the judiciary. Secondly, traditional “slavery” referred to a status and system
arising from a property relationship involving the slaveholder, the slave, and the society. The
slaveholder had absolute property rights in the physical person of the slave; and those property
rights had priority over the rights of the slave or of the society. That is, the slaveholder, pursuant
to law, owned the slave with priority of claim (extending to the right to terminate the slave
(commit homicide) without legal penalty) over the slave’s interest in herself or of the society’s
interest (if any) in the slave. With the exception of capital punishments for crimes against the
state – plotting rebellion, for example - the society could assert no interest in the slave that could
be enforced against the slaveholder’s own ownership interest. The slave, likewise, could not
assert legally cognizable interests, needs or wants against her master’s.
International legal definitions of “slavery,” have similarly hinged upon the chattel-property
relationship between slaveholder and slave. For example, the League of Nations’ Slavery,
Forced Labor and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention of 1926,19 which may contain
the most influential international law definition of the term,20 also exemplifies the propertycentered definition. The Convention’s Article 1 declares that: “Slavery is the status or condition
of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are
exercised.”21
Sociologist Orlando Patterson’s definition is more interior to the relationship between master and
slave: His definition focuses on the interpersonal relationship and psychological benefits and
19
League of Nations’ Slavery, Forced Labor and Similar Institutions and Practices Convention of 1926, Art. 1(1), 60
L.N.T.S. 253, entered into force March 9, 1927.
20
Kevin Bales and Peter T. Robbins, “No One Shall Be Held in Slavery or Servitude:” A Critical Analysis of
International Slavery Agreements and Concepts of Slavery, HUM. RTS. REV., Jan.–March 2001 at 18.
21
Slavery Convention, Art. 1(1).
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detriments accruing to master and slave.22 However, despite its interiority, there is a sense that
surrounding cultural, social, political, and legal systems act as background reinforcement of the
master-slave relationship of power and powerlessness.
I have written of the nature of the use of trans-Atlantic slavery in the anti-trafficking fight, and of
the powerful emotions and reactions the analogy evokes.23 The images of historic slavery
offered a natural analogy,24 one that could prove very useful in the anti-exploitation cause. As
such, “slavery” began to appear in publications, the media, and everyday conversation. Users of
the word “slavery,” sometimes cautiously couched their usage in the language of “modern forms
of” or “modern” or “contemporary forms of” to refer to the types of contemporary exploitation
targeted by the user.
“Slavery” now seems to be everywhere, as the term evolves away from the traditional property
relationship to encompass exploitation previously described as “slavery-like” and to express
disapproval of exploitative relationships that shock the conscience. But there is grave, yet
seemingly unacknowledged danger in this lack of rigor. Despite cautionary words regarding use
22
Based on Patterson’s review and analysis of examples of slavery among a variety of cultures throughout human
history, he defines slavery as “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and greatly dishonored
people.” See Orlando Patterson, SLAVERY AND SOCIAL DEATH 13 (1982). Patterson continues “[s]lavery is
one of the most extreme forms of the relation of domination, approaching the limits of total power from the
viewpoint of the master, and of total powerlessness from the viewpoint of the slave.” Id. at 1. Offering additional
context, Patterson notes that “[w]hat was universal in the master-slave relationship was the strong sense of honor the
experience of mastership generated, and conversely, the dishonoring of the slave condition.” Id. at 11.
23
See Karen E. Bravo, Karen E. Bravo, Exploring the Analogy between Modern Trafficking in Humans and the
Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, 25 B.U. Int’l L.J. 207 (2007) and Karen E. Bravo, The Role of the Trans-Atlantic Slave
Trade in Contemporary Anti-Trafficking Discourse, 9 Seattle J. for Social Justice 555 (2011) (each challenging the
superficiality and emotional exploitation of these uses).
24
See Yuen Foon Khong, ANALOGIES AT WAR 14, 262 (1992) (identifying and analyzing the use and misuse of
historical analogies).
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of the term in the anti-human trafficking and anti-exploitation realms,25 “slavery’s” use continues
unabated. Does it work?
PART III
BENEFITS AND HARMS OF “SLAVERY”
Does “slavery” work? For victims of contemporary exploitation? For “activists” against these
contemporary types of exploitation? For “society”? Against the exploiters and the beneficiaries
of the exploitation?
On the one hand, in light of the extent and nature of the exploitation uncovered, the use of the
term may appear to be both reasonable and apposite. On the other hand, the use appears to be
fraught with danger.
Benefits:
Benefits to victims:
The benefits derived from use of the term are: greater attention to contemporary exploitative
circumstances; the galvanization of actors from disparate parts of the society, including
governmental institutions, and private corporate actors.26 The outrage evoked from these
disparate actors can be channeled into action.
25
See, e.g., Karen E. Bravo, Exploring the Analogy between Modern Trafficking in Humans and the Trans-Atlantic
Slave Trade, 25 B.U. Int’l L.J. 207 (2007); and On Making Persons; Chuang, supra note 5.
26
Examples include the formation and activities of anti-slavery and anti-trafficking NGOs; legislative initiatives and
international collaborations by governments; and corporate anti-trafficking policies, initiatives, and best practices.
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Victims, therefore, may benefit from the label. Their until-then-invisible exploitation and
experiences are identified, named and analyzed, so that their suffering becomes observable,
possibly measureable, and part of the society’s understanding and depiction of itself.
In addition to these psychic and psychological benefits, legislative initiatives may trigger
tangible and legally enforceable benefits for some victim, including protection from their
exploiters and sometimes permanent rescue from their situations of exploitation.27
Harms:
Several countervailing considerations suggest the unwisdom of a liberal use of the term
“slavery.” The potential harms include victim stigmatization and re-victimization, damage to the
descendants of past slaves, and harm to the anti-human trafficking and anti-exploitation
campaigns.
Stigmatization and Re-Victimization
The very power of the term “slavery,” so readily accessible and able to stimulate action from the
civil society and other actors, extends its emotive aura to the label of “slave.” The term “slave”
reinforces the enslaved persons own psychic understanding of her debasement. “Naming” can
become a re-victimization, one that is enhanced by the stigmatization resulting from the
surrounding society’s perception of the nature and depth of the exploited person’s debasement.
Where that contemporary exploitation was less openly supported by legal and governmental
institutions, and appear to be the result of mere misguided choices made by the exploited person,
a certain quantum of “blame the victim” may emerge and may undermine movements toward
restitution.
27
For example, the U.S. anti-trafficking legislation provides for the issuance of special visas to victims of human
trafficking who meet certain criteria.
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Slave Descendants
The over-use of “slavery” undermines and harms communities of descendants of past slaves.
This harm is effectuated as much through the bandying about of the term (each hearing being a
small cut that evokes the shame of historic exploitation and subhuman status – and cuts
accumulate) as by the incorrect usage. By labeling as “slavery” exploitation that is not slavery,
the users create misunderstanding of the nature and extent of the exploitation to which past
slaves were subjected and of their enduring present day effects.
Harms to the cause?
The harm to the anti-trafficking and anti-exploitation campaigns stem from a similar dynamic:
over- and inapt use leads to widespread ignorance and failure of understanding of the nature of
slavery – both past and present. This ignorance and failure to understand extends to the
structural causes of and supports for past slavery and contemporary exploitation.
That harm is, perhaps, the most damaging one. Where those resources are not devoted to
structural responses to the inequality and sources of vulnerability that give rise to the targeted
exploitation, the resources, efforts and initiatives will function as mere Band-Aid, without
affecting root causes of the exploitation.
A failure to address structural causes and supports of contemporary exploitation means that
today’s activists and their initiatives are consigned to a fruitless exercise of bailing out a leaky
boat – without first finding out why the water is coming in or why attempts to stem the flow fail.
The water – the victims – will continue to come in a ceaseless upwelling flow. Anti-trafficking
and anti-exploitation efforts will succeed in maintaining an even yet treacherous keel on a
temporary basis. All too soon, however, by failing to address foundational and supportive
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structure, the water will be chest high, the boat will go under and the ineffectiveness of the
efforts will be such that there is no recover.
PART IV
MAKING “SLAVERY” WORK
In view of these identified harms and benefits, how do we make “slavery” work? Can we or
should we make it work better? Do we want it to work?
I admit to queasiness about use of the word and to substantial ambivalence regarding getting
slavery to “work.” My unease springs from (1) belief in the need to safeguard rigorous
definitions and definitions’ important role in “naming” reality;28 (2) concern about a
contemporary dissipation of the meaning and understanding of slavery, both historic and
contemporary; and (3) apprehension that “slavery” is mis-used to the detriment of the victims
and causes for whom the users claim to advocate.
Although I object to the ways in which “slavery” is used and believe that its great potential to
deepen knowledge of systems of exploitation is insufficiently recognized, I wonder whether the
time may be past for stemming the tide. If that is the case, and “slavery” is and will be used in
anti-exploitation efforts, how to make sure that “slavery” “works”? That is, how to ensure that
its use is effective in anti-trafficking initiatives and initiatives against other abhorrent forms of
exploitation?
“Works” in the context of “slavery” means the effective use of the term. Such use would stem
from contextual understanding that “slavery” was not aberrational in previous eras and is not
28
Only from “accurate” naming that reflects reality can we achieve understanding of events and phenomena so as to
effectively respond to them.
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aberrational now. “Slavery” works if structures of subordination and exploitation and their roles
are identified and targeted in the anti-exploitation efforts. “Slavery” does not work with an
almost exclusive and obsessive egregiously prurient focus on sensation-causing examples of
exploitation.
Therefore, users must renounce a decontextualized use of the term and must invoke it only
having mastered and while referring to the interrelationships among different types and periods
of exploitation, including their manifestations and legacies today. This contemporary era and
type of exploitation must be linked to and understood in light of the exploitation of prior eras.
Exploitation must be understood in terms of its mutability and adaptability, as well as in terms of
fundamental similarities across time and geographic space.
Secondly, if “slavery” is to be used because of the attractiveness and effectiveness of its power,
users must openly acknowledge that “slavery” does not mean “slavery” as traditionally
understood or legally defined. Instead, “slavery” has become a shorthand reference for several
contemporary and widely condemned forms of exploitation.
CONCLUSION
“Slavery” can work, but the standard for appropriate and effective use is high. It requires
understanding of slavery’s structural nature and institutional supports, and identification and
recognition of disparate (even unknowing) beneficiaries of the exploitation. It also demands
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identification of the participants and forces who create and police the vulnerabilities that give
rise to extreme forms of exploitation.29
“Slavery” does not work when it evokes strong and passionate reactions, but does not channel
them against the structural causes of this extreme exploitation. Passionate but ignorance-laced
ineffective do-gooding, no matter how many are the do-gooders or plentiful the resources at their
disposal, cannot make slavery “work” to effectively combat the targeted forms of exploitation.
29
See Karen E. Bravo, Interrogating the State's Roles in Human Trafficking, 25 Indiana Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 9
(2014).
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