Evolving Slavery - Assignment Example

This is a worldwide event which has existed for hundreds of centuries up to the present. During the ancient times, slavery was brought about by social backgrounds. Slavery was the term used during the ancient period until a certain period when human trafficking was used instead.1 In some cultures, slavery is a hereditary event. Children born to parents who are slaves will automatically be slaves. Thus, their future children will also have the same fate. Slavery has been noted to have occurred at all the ancient civilizations in 4 continents namely Africa, Asia, Europe and pre-Columbian America.

2 There is that perception that once a slave, forever that person will remain a slave as well as his or her descendants. It has also been said in an ancient Sumerian code, The Code of Hammurabi, that when a non-slave helps a slave to get out of slavery, the non-slave will be put to death.3 In modern days, as previously stated, slavery is being pertained too, one example of which is human trafficking.4 With the tradition of slavery being carried through in more recent decades, even if a person is still a child, that person is not free from slavery.

However, this is not the only way by which a child becomes a victim of human trafficking. Besides the cultural and traditional factors, poverty is the main reason why there are increasing numbers of children being victimized by human traffickers or syndicates. Cultural influence is one of the factors in human trafficking. Another factor is age. Children can be abducted easier than adults as they are smaller and do not have the physical capabilities and intellectual maturity to fight back against abductors.

These factors go together as culture teaches children to obey adults and not fight back. So this also makes abduction easier. Kidnapped children are then enslaved either to do hard works, seek alms on streets or worst be abused and killed.5 In human trafficking, when the victim is said to be a child, it means that it is below the age of 18. The phrase itself evolved from the term slavery by the middle of 20th century. Human trafficking was defined as “the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or recipient 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.

”6 On the other hand, slavery has been defined as “a relationship in which one person is controlled by another through violence, the threat of violence, or psychological coercion, has lost free will and free movement, is exploited economically, and is paid nothing beyond subsistence.”7 It is not just the term which has evolved through the ages. The definition itself has evolved. Bottom line is that whether it is slavery or human trafficking, it is a clear violation of human rights to live freely and improve a person’s way of living.

In ancient times, slavery was inherited. There is no way out of slavery, no chance to improve the way of living as if slaves are not human. In recent decades, human trafficking is forcing a person to become a slave. One thing that is common between slavery then and human trafficking now is that both