In the opening chapter of Twelve Years a Slave, first published in 1853, the protagonist Solomon Northup, a New York carpenter, violinist and free man – until tricked into brutal bondage – reports modestly: "It has been suggested that the account of my life and fortunes would not be uninteresting to the public."
He was right. Today at the Oscars, the film version of Northup's experience, already garlanded with awards, and directed by Steve McQueen, is nominated in nine categories, including best film, best director and best actor. Last month, at the Baftas, McQueen, a patron of the charity Anti-Slavery International took the opportunity of being presented with the prize of best film to make a point that he may well repeat in Hollywood if he wins today. "There are 21 million people in slavery as we sit here," he told the audience, adding that he hoped that in 150 years' time his film would not need to be made again.
At the current pace of change, that is an ambitious wish. This week, Mauritania, the last country to abolish slavery, initiates an anti-slavery programme, encouraged by the United Nations Commission for Human Rights. It includes more support for victims, a special tribunal and access to lawyers. "The train is certainly in motion," said Gulnara Shahinan, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary slavery. "As long as the will is there, the rest will follow in time."
The global challenge is that, too often, political will is absent or insufficiently robust to effect the kind of proactive action, practical support for victims and tough penalties on perpetrators that accelerate real change. Estimates of the number of people trapped in modern-day slavery range from 20 million to 30 million globally, although hard facts and strong data are elusive. Modern slavery is no longer sanctioned by governments but it remains ubiquitous and highly lucrative. According to the CNN Freedom Project in the US, the average price of a slave in 1809 (adjusted to today's value) was $40,000. In 2009, that had fallen to $90. Low overheads and a high return; human misery mined in the name of profit.
The extent of the misery is illustrated in the tale of 16-year-old Somila Tanti from Assam, told in the Observer Magazine today. A trafficker lured her at the age of 13 to Delhi from scandalously badly paid work on a tea plantation. He was paid £250 by a couple who hired Somila as a maid. The trafficker then pocketed her monthly wages of 4,000 rupees (£38). Somila is one of 18 girls from whom he made a regular income.
Between 2008 and 2012, 452,679 cases of child trafficking for domestic labour were reported in India. Only 0.6% of those reports led to convictions. Slavery today comes in a number of forms. It includes sex trafficking and "bonded labour", as seen in Qatar, with desperately poorly paid, badly housed non-Qatari labourers building facilities in preparation for Fifa's 2022 World Cup. They are trapped, even as their death rate rises, by the "debt" they owe to contractors who ferried them from countries such as Nepal.
Bonded labour also exists in the UK. Vietnamese people, for example, are brought to cannabis factories, forced to work to pay off impossibly huge transportation fees that brought them to this country in the first place.
Human Rights Watch recently issued a report which claimed that the Thai fishing industry – the third largest exporter of seafood in the world – relied in large part on the "systematic and pervasive" use of forced labour. In other words, men from Burma and Cambodia trafficked into slavery. A Human Rights Watch spokesman said: "The biggest problem we've seen is that if people can't work, people aren't useful on board, they can be killed and thrown overboard."
Modern slavery is every bit as cruel, dehumanising and violent as the portrait painted in 12 Years A Slave. But with greater mobility, transparency and international institutions who could work in unison, it is unforgivable that it remains a crime largely hidden from view. At this rate, it might well be another 150 years before the scale of the horrors visited on so many to force them into labour is properly apparent.
There is a need for a much greater campaign of awareness to highlight how the denial of freedom for children and adults often supports our way of life. Twenty-first century slaves are put to work, for example, in making cheap clothes and toiling in the lucrative chocolate industry.
In the UK, according to the Home Office, while overall crime is falling, cases of human trafficking have seen a sharp increase. In 2013, there were 1,746 potential victims of trafficking, a 47% rise on the previous year. Albania, Nigeria and Vietnam headed the list of 112 countries from which potential victims were trafficked. Theresa May, the home secretary, has said that tackling slavery is her personal priority and the Modern Slavery Bill is due to become law in the spring. The bill consolidates and simplifies existing slavery and trafficking offences, increases the maximum sentence to life imprisonment and creates an anti-slavery commissioner. While welcoming the bill, Jakub Sobik, of Anti-Slavery International, has expressed justified concerns that the bill so far gives victims of slavery insufficient protection. For children, strong guardianship rights should be established in law to stop the pattern of trafficked youngsters removed to local authority care frequently going missing.
The bill, now in select committee, can be toughened. What also requires attention is the 2012 change to immigration law that means an individual can bring an overseas domestic worker into Britain, but with a visa limited to six months and with the employee forbidden from seeking alternative employment. An enslaved domestic worker who overstays their visa and approaches the authorities for help could face deportation to a country in which they have limited resources and support. A victim protection clause is required in the legislation and an assurance that the anti-slavery commissioner is politically independent.
More than 200 years ago, William Wilberforce finally won the support of parliament at an important stage in his battle against slavery. "You may choose to look the other way," Wilberforce told the House of Commons, "but you can never again say that you did not know." In their own way, on an international scale, the unlikely pairing of Solomon Northup and Steve McQueen has again performed a similar deed in cinema. If modern-day slavery is to end, we cannot look away. We all have a role to play.
