Wanna own your own slave?

The Chicago Sun-Times columnist, Cathleen Falsani, points out that it's more than 165 years since slavery was made illegal in the USA.

It's sixty years since the United Nationas declared, in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that: "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms."

Yet in 2008 there are more slaves in the world than were taken during 400 years of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, according to the documentary film, Call + Response. This film is a combination of music focusing on slavery, and images of people who are suffering in slavery around the world.

Of the 27 million slaves worldwide, half are children and 80 percent are female.
Some more stats:

• • Slave traders made $32 billion last year.

• • The average cost of a slave is $90.

• • More than one-third of all prostitutes in South and East Asia are children.

• • More than 17,500 people are trafficked as slaves to the U.S. each year.

• • Fifty percent of slaves in the U.S. work in agriculture, manufacturing or domestic work.

For more information go to the Call and Response website. A question worth asking: how many slaves are there in New Zealand?