Introduction: Combating Contemporary Slavery

Abstract

Slavery was outlawed in Britain and in the rest of the world in the nineteenth century. Yet the practice has never been completely eradicated and recently several contemporary forms of slavery have caught public attention. The ship with child slaves on the coast of West Africa, the abuse of migrant domestic workers discovered in western cities, child labour in the carpet industry in India and in mines in Africa and Latin America have all attracted media attention in recent years. The work of Anti-Slavery International, still campaigning against slavery since its role in the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century, has contributed to more and more people becoming aware of the existence of contemporary forms of slavery. Although research exists on all the forms of slavery mentioned above, researchers often do not use the term contemporary slavery to describe the subject of their work. Books focus, for example, on migrant domestic workers, on child labour or on bonded labour.