Digital Learning Commons: Memorial Globalization and Modern Day Slavery: What is Modern Day Slavery?

What is Modern Slavery?

Someone is in slavery if they are:

- forced to work – through coercion, or mental or physical threat

- owned or controlled by an ’employer’, through mental or physical abuse or the threat of abuse

- dehumanised, treated as a commodity or bought and sold as ‘property’

- physically constrained or have restrictions placed on their freedom of movement

Forced Labor
any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form of punishment.
Debt bondage, or bonded labor
the world’s most widespread form of slavery, when people borrow money they cannot repay and are required to work to pay off the debt, then losing control over the conditions of both their employment and the debt.
Human trafficking
involves transporting, recruiting or harboring people for the purpose of exploitation, using violence, threats or coercion.
Descent-based slavery
where people are born into slavery because their ancestors were captured and enslaved; they remain in slavery by descent.
Child slavery
many people often confuse child slavery with child labour, but it is much worse. Whilst child labour is harmful for children and hinders their education and development, child slavery occurs when a child is exploited for someone else’s gain. It can include child trafficking, child soldiers, child marriage and child domestic slavery.