These Heartbreaking Photos Show How Slavery Isn't A Thing Of The Past
There are currently 27 million people enslaved or in forced labor. That's more than double the number of people trafficked during the entire Transatlantic Slave Trade.
Often, entire communities are enslaved. Free The Slaves works to liberate them.
The abolitionists often work undercover, posing as slaves.
When the abolitionists brought Kristine, she had no more than 10 minutes at a time to photograph. If an overseer or slave owner spotted them, they had to flee quickly or risk endangering themselves or the slaves they were photographing.
These Nepalese children in the Himalayas lug slabs of slate heavier than themselves down the mountain, while their parents break stones in the quarry.
At the brick kiln, workers carry 18-bricks at a time in 130-degree heat to waiting trucks.
It took many years, but Free The Slaves was able to free the community. After liberating them, the organization helped the community obtain a quarry license so they could continue to do the same work, but be paid.
In Ghana, miners work 200 or 300 feet below the surface in illegal gold mine shafts, surrounded by dust and darkness.
Slaves work in the mines with crude flashlights attached to their head for 72-hour stretches.
The water that the miners must sift through to get to the gold is laced with mercury, leading to severe health problems.
Many people fall into slavery when they incur debt that they cannot pay back. Then the money lender charges them astronomical interest rates and forces them to work.
When they cannot pay off the debt, it is passed on to the slaves' children. In this family portrait, a father and his two sons show their hands, covered in a toxic chemical, at a silk dyeing factory.
In Ghana, Kristine encountered children hauling in 1,000-pound fishing nets after all-night exhibitions.
Often, families with too many children to feed will give up their child to a person promising to take them to an adopting family that will send them to a good school. The children are then sold to human traffickers, like this child from Ghana. After Kristine took this picture, this child was reunited with his family.
While the problem can often seem insurmountable, Kristine says that the communities do become liberated when advocacy groups put attention and pressure on the slave holders.
Slavery isn't the only part of this world that seems stuck in the past...
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