Two hundred and thirty years ago, on March 22, the United States passed the Slave Trade Act of 1794.  The act, which prohibited the building or outfitting of ships for the slave trade, was but one step towards the U.S. abolition of owning slaves in 1865.  We present two articles on the topic, from ten and twenty years ago, respectively.

In other times and by other names.  Barbara Lehtiniemi draws attention to the ongoing issue of human slavery, which includes what is now called human trafficking.  “It’s tempting to believe that humankind has matured from the thinking that allowed centuries of sickening slavery to take place. Yet today there are an estimated 20 million people enslaved in the world.”  Free at Last? –Why We Still Need to Talk about Slavery, August 22, 2014.

Sex, soldiers, and sweatshops.  Zil-E-Huma Lodhi examines the contexts in which slavery arises—and flourishes.  “There is also a horrible trend in war smitten countries, where rebels or anti-government forces kidnap kids of a very young age and train them to work as their recruiters on front lines or as a spies in enemy territory.”  Slavery, February 25, 2004.