From: "Madeleine Yeh" <myeh at wap.org>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: [wsfa-forum] Slavery in Modern America (Not)
To: wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com
Cc: WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 2006 17:31:24 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

On Tue, 11 Jul 2006 16:12:06 -0400
  "Strong, Lee" <strongl at sddc.army.mil> wrote:
>            Madeleine worries that a form of slavery is
>reappearing in modern America....... I
>believe that these concerns are overblown.
>
>   For example, corrupt sheriffs
> can not sell labor if potential employers are aware that
>free labor is more productive than forced labor.  No market
>for forced labor, no incentive to force labor.

Here is the article again
  http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/05/us/05prisoners.html?pagewanted=1

  This has the prisoners working in a pepper sauce plant,
and cooking hamburgers, and roofing churches and tending
the athletic fields at a school.

>   Slavery does have to make sense to continue.
   It can be a rich man's luxury item, not part of a work
force or an investment for the middle class. Look at
historical China and Turkey ( not terribly long ago
either, probably early 1900s ). The Mansfield decision in
1799 abolished slavery in England freed 14 thousand slaves
but not a drastic part of the labor force.  Slavery wasn't
abolished over the whole British empire until  1833.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism

>  I am not aware of any slavery convictions in
> Northern Virginia since the Civil War.
>
   I'll see if I can find a reference but I remember
reading in the Washington post in the last couple years
about an African woman whose employers brought her over
from Kenya but didn't pay her.

Here is a link to a Montgomery county site to help
victims, which logically speaking means the crime does
exist
http://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/hhstmpl.asp?url=/content/hhs/vasap/trafficking.asp