How can we explain the appeal of the campaign to end modern slavery? At the rhetorical and emotional level it is self-evident. Slavery conjures up images of cruelty and horrific violations of human rights. The term ‘modern slavery’ resonates with older forms of slavery such as chattel slavery in the United States, which was depicted so vividly in the celebrated 2013 movie Twelve Years a Slave. It also echoes with the campaigns against the ‘white slave trade’, the term used to describe forced prostitution at the turn of the 20th century in the United States, where the White-Slave Traffic Act was passed in 1910. This act, better known as the Mann Act, was the original anti-trafficking law since it made it a crime to transport any woman or girl in interstate commerce or foreign commerce for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery. Thus, modern slavery also evokes images of women and children who are victims of sexual exploitation.
The appeal of the term modern slavery is precisely its over-determination; it encompasses a broad range of exploitive practices from traditional understandings of slavery and forced labour to human trafficking and prostitution. As such, it is a cause around which disparate groups, individuals, and states can mobilise; Anti-Slavery International, Liberty, Walk Free, the Pope, the UK Coalition Government, and the Obama administration all support the eradication of modern slavery. No one is ‘for’ modern slavery.
Moreover, the goal of many groups is to stretch the meaning of modern slavery to include an even broader range of exploitative practices, especially those where employment and migration intersect. Increasingly, labour exploitation is a focus for anti-slavery advocates, fueled in part by the International Labour Organization’s work to publicise the extent of forced labour. The aim is also to expand the arsenal for combatting modern slavery to include criminal law, human rights, labour standards and business regulation approaches.
