Slavery in 2012

Although slavery was ended by the emancipation proclamation over 100 years ago, there is still slavery and human trafficking going on in the United States today. President Barack Obama declared this month, January of 2012, as National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month and it is very important that we get this issue known and be on the path to ending it. The estimated revenue generated by the international crime industries is 32 billion dollars annually, of  that money 15.5 billion dollars are from human trafficking that's almost half of the revenue. As you can see in the image above although we do not think it occurs in the United States there is between 14,500 and 17,500 people trafficked into the U.S. every year.
Slavery is defined as one person completely controlling another person, using violence or the threat of violence to maintain that control, exploits them economically, pays them nothing and they cannot walk away. Instead of calling it what it really is the people who own these slaves call it debt bondage, bonded labor, attached labor, restavec, forced labor, or indentured servitude even though it is really slavery. One big industry in which slavery occurs is the chocolate industry.

Everybody loves chocolate but for many people it is the reason that they are enslaved. In West Africa and the Ivory Coast, one of the biggest cocoa producers in the world, children as young as ten years old are working on a cocoa plantation. Thousands of people are enslaved just to give us a small luxury and they need our help.
There are many facts about modern day slavery today but I believe the three most important things are that each year thousands of slaves are trafficked into the United States and we cant stop it, 90 dollars is the average cost of a human slave sold around the world, which is awful who are we to put a price on another mans life, and third there are 27 million slaves worldwide and slavery is illegal almost everywhere how can we allow this to continue. Slavery is a terrible thing to allow happen and we supposedly ended it over 100 years ago. it is illegal and extremely wrong to do these things to other human beings. Join the cause and spread the word, do your part and really end slavery in your lifetime!