Apr 04 2009
Book Review - “Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade” by David Batstone
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For my honors class in college, a speaker came in and talked to the class about something you don’t normally hear about much: Slavery right here and now, in the year 2009.
Unfortunately, I missed class that day, so I didn’t get to hear him speak. As make-up work for missing the class, I was assigned a video to watch on this global pandemic. I have posted the video below for all of you to watch.
WARNING: This video will make you sick to your stomach, not so much because of the graphic pictures in the video (although there is a little of that) but because of the realization that all of this has been happening, and you have done nothing to stop it. At just over 5 minutes, it is well worth your time to watch.
After watching that video, I wanted to know what I could do. I also wanted to find more information on the subject, since this was literally the first time I had heard about this. Slavery? Here in America? C’mon, what are you talking about? Slavery was abolished! President Lincoln? Emancipation Proclamation? Doesn’t any of that ring a bell?
Yeah, that was me. I was shocked and disturbed to the tips of my toes that this was still happening today. I went to Amazon to see if I could find a book with more information on modern-day human slavery, and I found Not For Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade - and How We Can Fight It by David Batstone. I just finished reading it today. Batstone is the head of a website, Not For Sale Campaign, and now does tours around the United States speaking about human trafficking.
The book Not for Sale was an eye-opening look at all the forms of human slavery, from women being forced to serve as sex slaves in a brothel, to whole families being locked inside of a rice factory for years, to children being forced to fight as soldiers in rebel armies in Africa. There doesn’t seem to be a corner of the world that is not affected in some shape or form by this.
The book did have some ADD tendencies to it, however. The author would start out a chapter talking about sex slavery in Asian countries, and throughout the chapter would jump from the story of someone who was forced into slavery, to a person who is fighting it as an abolitionist however they can (by providing aid to those who escape, by helping people escape, by providing legal representation to those who escaped, etc), and then on to the general landscape of the problem - why it is thriving, what has made it hard to fight, etc.
Each new section within the chapter meant a jump to a new point of view on the problem, and he regularly jumped back and forth between the different point of views until wrapping up the chapter (usually) with the escape and freedom of the slave.
When I first started reading, I thought, “Who is this? What is he talking about? What happened to the person whose story he just left?” After I read through several chapters and got more used to this writing style, it didn’t bother me as much, but I still cannot say it’s my favorite writing style, and I wish he had done it differently.
Despite this minor flaw, the book was still excellent. If you want a broad overview of the worldwide problem of human trafficking, then this is the book for you. If you are outraged by the video above and you want more information and you especially want to know what you can do to make a difference, then you need to read this book. This is an excellent introduction into the world of slavery, and will help you better understand the global dynamics of it.
At the end of the book, he has a listing of the various agencies fighting this problem along with their websites so you can find a group nearby that you can join to help fight this. Don’t think this problem exists in your backyard? Check out Slavery Map, where you can search the globe and see where the various incidents have happened. I had two in my state alone.
There are books that make you laugh, there are books that teach you stuff. There are books that broaden your horizons. But Not For Sale will change your life. Buy it today. After you’re done reading, pass it on to a friend or neighbor, and encourage them to continue passing it on when they’re done. The more we know about this problem, the better we can fight it. Knowledge is everything.
If you don’t see it, then you aren’t looking for it.
~ modern slavery in a nutshell
Havs
PS My hometown is going to get a visit from David Batstone and his entourage very soon. If any of you who are reading this are from my hometown and want more information, call me or send me an email and I’ll gladly give you the info. I’d love to post it here but for privacy reasons will not. 
