TED2010
Kevin Bales: How to combat modern slavery
Filmed:
Readability: 3.9
1,090,018 views
In this moving yet pragmatic talk, Kevin Bales explains the business of modern slavery, a multibillion-dollar economy that underpins some of the worst industries on earth. He shares stats and personal stories from his on-the-ground research -- and names the price of freeing every slave on earth right now.
Kevin Bales - Anti-slavery activist
Kevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25 years. He's the author of "Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves." Full bio
Kevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25 years. He's the author of "Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves." Full bio
Double-click the English transcript below to play the video.
00:16
You know for me, the interest in contemporary forms of slavery
0
1000
4000
00:20
started with a leaflet that I picked up in London.
1
5000
2000
00:22
It was the early '90s,
2
7000
2000
00:24
and I was at a public event.
3
9000
2000
00:26
I saw this leaflet and it said,
4
11000
3000
00:29
"There are millions of slaves in the world today."
5
14000
3000
00:32
And I thought, "No way, no way."
6
17000
4000
00:36
And I'm going to admit to hubris.
7
21000
3000
00:39
Because I also, I'm going to admit to you,
8
24000
2000
00:41
I also thought, "How can I be like
9
26000
2000
00:43
a hot-shot young full professor
10
28000
2000
00:45
who teaches human rights and not know this?
11
30000
3000
00:48
So it can't be true."
12
33000
2000
00:50
Well, if you teach, if you worship
13
35000
2000
00:52
in the temple of learning,
14
37000
2000
00:54
do not mock the gods,
15
39000
2000
00:56
because they will take you,
16
41000
2000
00:58
fill you with curiosity and desire,
17
43000
3000
01:01
and drive you. Drive you with a passion
18
46000
3000
01:04
to change things.
19
49000
3000
01:07
I went out and did a lit review,
20
52000
2000
01:09
3,000 articles on the key word "slavery."
21
54000
3000
01:12
Two turned out to be about contemporary -- only two.
22
57000
3000
01:15
All the rest were historical.
23
60000
2000
01:17
They were press pieces and they were full of outrage,
24
62000
3000
01:20
they were full of speculation, they were anecdotal --
25
65000
3000
01:23
no solid information.
26
68000
2000
01:25
So, I began to do a research project of my own.
27
70000
3000
01:28
I went to five countries around the world.
28
73000
2000
01:30
I looked at slaves. I met slaveholders,
29
75000
3000
01:33
and I looked very deeply
30
78000
2000
01:35
into slave-based businesses
31
80000
3000
01:38
because this is an economic crime.
32
83000
2000
01:40
People do not enslave people to be mean to them.
33
85000
4000
01:44
They do it to make a profit.
34
89000
2000
01:46
And I've got to tell you, what I found out in the world
35
91000
2000
01:48
in four different continents,
36
93000
3000
01:51
was depressingly familiar.
37
96000
2000
01:53
Like this:
38
98000
3000
01:56
Agricultural workers in Africa,
39
101000
2000
01:58
whipped and beaten,
40
103000
2000
02:00
showing us how they were beaten in the fields
41
105000
3000
02:03
before they escaped from slavery
42
108000
2000
02:05
and met up with our film crew.
43
110000
2000
02:07
It was mind-blowing.
44
112000
3000
02:10
And I want to be very clear.
45
115000
4000
02:14
I'm talking about real slavery.
46
119000
2000
02:16
This is not about lousy marriages,
47
121000
2000
02:18
this is not about jobs that suck.
48
123000
2000
02:20
This is about people who can not walk away,
49
125000
3000
02:23
people who are forced to work without pay,
50
128000
2000
02:25
people who are operating 24/7
51
130000
3000
02:28
under a threat of violence
52
133000
2000
02:30
and have no pay.
53
135000
3000
02:33
It's real slavery in exactly the same way
54
138000
2000
02:35
that slavery would be recognized
55
140000
2000
02:37
throughout all of human history.
56
142000
3000
02:40
Now, where is it?
57
145000
2000
02:42
Well, this map in the sort of redder, yellower colors
58
147000
3000
02:45
are the places with the highest densities of slavery.
59
150000
3000
02:48
But in fact that kind of bluey color
60
153000
2000
02:50
are the countries where we can't find any cases of slavery.
61
155000
3000
02:53
And you might notice that it's only Iceland and Greenland
62
158000
3000
02:56
where we can't find any cases of enslavement
63
161000
2000
02:58
around the world.
64
163000
2000
03:00
We're also particularly interested
65
165000
2000
03:02
and looking very carefully
66
167000
2000
03:04
at places where
67
169000
4000
03:08
slaves are being used to perpetrate
68
173000
2000
03:10
extreme environmental destruction.
69
175000
4000
03:14
Around the world, slaves are used to destroy the environment,
70
179000
3000
03:17
cutting down trees in the Amazon; destroying
71
182000
2000
03:19
forest areas in West Africa;
72
184000
2000
03:21
mining and spreading mercury around
73
186000
3000
03:24
in places like Ghana and the Congo;
74
189000
2000
03:26
destroying the coastal ecosystems in South Asia.
75
191000
4000
03:30
It's a pretty harrowing linkage
76
195000
3000
03:33
between what's happening to our environment
77
198000
2000
03:35
and what's happening to our human rights.
78
200000
2000
03:37
Now, how on Earth did we get to a situation like this,
79
202000
3000
03:40
where we have 27 million people
80
205000
3000
03:43
in slavery in the year 2010?
81
208000
2000
03:45
That's double the number that came out of Africa
82
210000
3000
03:48
in the entire transatlantic slave trade.
83
213000
3000
03:51
Well, it builds up with these factors.
84
216000
2000
03:53
They are not causal, they are actually supporting factors.
85
218000
3000
03:56
One we all know about, the population explosion:
86
221000
3000
03:59
the world goes from two billion people to almost
87
224000
2000
04:01
seven billion people in the last 50 years.
88
226000
3000
04:04
Being numerous does not make you a slave.
89
229000
2000
04:06
Add in the increased vulnerability of very large numbers of people
90
231000
5000
04:11
in the developing world,
91
236000
2000
04:13
caused by civil wars, ethnic conflicts,
92
238000
3000
04:16
kleptocratic governments, disease ... you name it, you know it.
93
241000
3000
04:19
We understand how that works. In some countries
94
244000
2000
04:21
all of those things happen at once,
95
246000
2000
04:23
like Sierra Leone a few years ago,
96
248000
2000
04:25
and push enormous parts ... about a billion people in the world, in fact,
97
250000
4000
04:29
as we know, live on the edge,
98
254000
2000
04:31
live in situations where
99
256000
2000
04:33
they don't have any opportunity and are usually even destitute.
100
258000
5000
04:38
But that doesn't make you a slave either.
101
263000
3000
04:41
What it takes to turn a person who is destitute and vulnerable
102
266000
3000
04:44
into a slave, is the absence of the rule of law.
103
269000
4000
04:48
If the rule of law is sound, it protects
104
273000
2000
04:50
the poor and it protects the vulnerable.
105
275000
2000
04:52
But if corruption creeps in
106
277000
2000
04:54
and people don't have the opportunity
107
279000
2000
04:56
to have that protection of the rule of law,
108
281000
2000
04:58
then if you can use violence,
109
283000
2000
05:00
if you can use violence with impunity,
110
285000
2000
05:02
you can reach out and harvest the vulnerable
111
287000
3000
05:05
into slavery.
112
290000
2000
05:07
Well, that is precisely what has happened around the world.
113
292000
4000
05:11
Though, for a lot of people,
114
296000
4000
05:15
the people who step
115
300000
2000
05:17
into slavery today
116
302000
3000
05:20
don't usually get kidnapped or knocked over the head.
117
305000
4000
05:24
They come into slavery because
118
309000
2000
05:26
someone has asked them this question.
119
311000
2000
05:28
All around the world I've been told an almost identical story.
120
313000
3000
05:31
People say, "I was home,
121
316000
2000
05:33
someone came into our village,
122
318000
2000
05:35
they stood up in the back of a truck, they said, 'I've got jobs,
123
320000
2000
05:37
who needs a job?'"
124
322000
2000
05:39
And they did exactly what
125
324000
2000
05:41
you or I would do in the same situation.
126
326000
3000
05:44
They said, "That guy looked sketchy. I was suspicious,
127
329000
4000
05:48
but my children were hungry.
128
333000
3000
05:51
We needed medicine.
129
336000
2000
05:53
I knew I had to do anything I could
130
338000
2000
05:55
to earn some money to support the people I care about."
131
340000
4000
05:59
They climb into the back of the truck. They go off with the person who recruits them.
132
344000
3000
06:02
Ten miles, 100 miles, 1,000 miles later,
133
347000
4000
06:06
they find themselves in dirty, dangerous, demeaning work.
134
351000
4000
06:10
They take it for a little while,
135
355000
2000
06:12
but when they try to leave, bang!, the hammer comes down,
136
357000
3000
06:15
and they discover they're enslaved.
137
360000
3000
06:18
Now, that kind of slavery
138
363000
3000
06:21
is, again, pretty much what slavery has been all through human history.
139
366000
4000
06:25
But there is one thing that is particularly remarkable
140
370000
4000
06:29
and novel about slavery today,
141
374000
2000
06:31
and that is a complete collapse
142
376000
4000
06:35
in the price of human beings --
143
380000
3000
06:38
expensive in the past, dirt cheap now.
144
383000
3000
06:41
Even the business programs have started
145
386000
2000
06:43
picking up on this.
146
388000
2000
06:45
I just want to share a little clip for you.
147
390000
2000
06:47
Daphne: OK. Llively discussion guaranteed here, as always,
148
392000
2000
06:49
as we get macro and talk commodities.
149
394000
3000
06:52
Continuing here in the studio with our guest Michael O'Donohue,
150
397000
3000
06:55
head of commodities at Four Continents Capital Management.
151
400000
2000
06:57
And we're also joined by Brent Lawson
152
402000
3000
07:00
from Lawson Frisk Securities.
153
405000
2000
07:02
Brent Lawson: Happy to be here.
154
407000
2000
07:04
D: Good to have you with us, Brent.
155
409000
2000
07:06
Now, gentlemen ... Brent, where is your money going this year?
156
411000
4000
07:10
BL: Well Daphne, we've been going short on gas and oil recently
157
415000
3000
07:13
and casting our net just a little bit wider.
158
418000
2000
07:15
We really like the human being story a lot.
159
420000
3000
07:18
If you look at a long-term chart,
160
423000
3000
07:21
prices are at historical lows and yet global demand
161
426000
2000
07:23
for forced labor is still real strong.
162
428000
3000
07:26
So, that's a scenario that we think we should be capitalizing on.
163
431000
4000
07:30
D: Michael, what's your take on the people story? Are you interested?
164
435000
3000
07:33
Michael O'Donoghue: Oh definitely. Non-voluntary labor's greatest advantage
165
438000
3000
07:36
as an asset is the endless supply.
166
441000
2000
07:38
We're not about to run out of people. No other commodity has that.
167
443000
3000
07:41
BL: Daphne, if I may draw your attention to one thing.
168
446000
2000
07:43
That is that private equity has been sniffing around,
169
448000
3000
07:46
and that tells me that this market is about to explode.
170
451000
3000
07:49
Africans and Indians, as usual,
171
454000
2000
07:51
South Americans, and Eastern Europeans in particular
172
456000
3000
07:54
are on our buy list.
173
459000
2000
07:56
D: Interesting. Micheal, bottom line, what do you recommend?
174
461000
3000
07:59
MO: We're recommending to our clients
175
464000
2000
08:01
a buy and hold strategy.
176
466000
2000
08:03
There's no need to play the market.
177
468000
2000
08:05
There's a lot of vulnerable people out there. It's very exciting.
178
470000
3000
08:08
D: Exciting stuff indeed. Gentlemen, thank you very much.
179
473000
3000
08:13
Kevin Bales: Okay, you figured it out. That's a spoof.
180
478000
2000
08:15
Though I enjoyed watching
181
480000
2000
08:17
your jaws drop, drop, drop, until you got it.
182
482000
4000
08:21
MTV Europe worked with us and made that spoof,
183
486000
3000
08:24
and they've been slipping it in between music videos
184
489000
2000
08:26
without any introduction, which I think is kind of fun.
185
491000
3000
08:29
Here's the reality.
186
494000
2000
08:31
The price of human beings across the last 4,000 years
187
496000
3000
08:34
in today's money has averaged about 40,000 dollars.
188
499000
3000
08:37
Capital purchase items.
189
502000
3000
08:40
You can see that the lines cross when the population explodes.
190
505000
3000
08:43
The average price of a human being today,
191
508000
3000
08:46
around the world, is about 90 dollars.
192
511000
2000
08:48
They are more expensive in places like North America.
193
513000
3000
08:51
Slaves cost between 3,000 to 8,000 dollars in North America,
194
516000
4000
08:55
but I could take you places in India or Nepal
195
520000
3000
08:58
where human beings can be acquired for five or 10 dollars.
196
523000
3000
09:01
They key here is that
197
526000
2000
09:03
people have ceased to be that capital purchase item
198
528000
4000
09:07
and become like Styrofoam cups.
199
532000
2000
09:09
You buy them cheaply, you use them,
200
534000
3000
09:12
you crumple them up, and then when you're done
201
537000
2000
09:14
with them you just throw them away.
202
539000
2000
09:16
These young boys are in Nepal.
203
541000
3000
09:19
They are basically the transport system
204
544000
3000
09:22
on a quarry run by a slaveholder.
205
547000
2000
09:24
There are no roads there, so they carry loads of stone
206
549000
3000
09:27
on their backs, often of their own weight,
207
552000
3000
09:30
up and down the Himalaya Mountains.
208
555000
2000
09:32
One of their mothers said to us,
209
557000
2000
09:34
"You know, we can't survive here,
210
559000
2000
09:36
but we can't even seem to die either."
211
561000
3000
09:39
It's a horrible situation.
212
564000
2000
09:41
And if there is anything that makes me feel very positive about this,
213
566000
4000
09:45
it's that there are also --
214
570000
2000
09:47
in addition to young men like this who are still enslaved --
215
572000
2000
09:49
there are ex-slaves who are now working to free others.
216
574000
4000
09:53
Or, we say, Frederick Douglass is in the house.
217
578000
3000
09:56
I don't know if you've ever had a daydream
218
581000
3000
09:59
about, "Wow. What would it be like to meet Harriet Tubman?
219
584000
2000
10:01
What would it be like to meet Frederick Douglass?"
220
586000
2000
10:03
I've got to say, one of the most exciting parts about my job
221
588000
3000
10:06
is that I get to,
222
591000
2000
10:08
and I want to introduce you to one of those.
223
593000
2000
10:10
His name is James Kofi Annan. He was a slave child in Ghana
224
595000
3000
10:13
enslaved in the fishing industry,
225
598000
2000
10:15
and he now, after escape and building a new life,
226
600000
4000
10:19
has formed an organization that we work closely with
227
604000
3000
10:22
to go back and get people out of slavery.
228
607000
2000
10:24
This is not James, this is one of the kids that he works with.
229
609000
3000
10:27
James Kofi Annan (Video): He was hit with a paddle
230
612000
2000
10:29
in the head. And this reminds me
231
614000
2000
10:31
of my childhood when I used to work here.
232
616000
3000
10:35
KB: James and our country director in Ghana,
233
620000
4000
10:39
Emmanuel Otoo are now receiving regular death threats
234
624000
3000
10:42
because the two of them managed to get
235
627000
2000
10:44
convictions and imprisonment for three human traffickers
236
629000
3000
10:47
for the very first time in Ghana
237
632000
2000
10:49
for enslaving people, from the fishing industry,
238
634000
2000
10:51
for enslaving children.
239
636000
2000
10:53
Now, everything I've been telling you,
240
638000
2000
10:55
I admit, is pretty disheartening.
241
640000
3000
10:58
But there is actually a very positive side to this,
242
643000
4000
11:02
and that is this: The 27 million people
243
647000
2000
11:04
who are in slavery today,
244
649000
2000
11:06
that's a lot of people, but it's also
245
651000
2000
11:08
the smallest fraction
246
653000
2000
11:10
of the global population to ever be in slavery.
247
655000
3000
11:13
And likewise, the 40 billion dollars that they generate
248
658000
3000
11:16
into the global economy each year
249
661000
2000
11:18
is the tiniest proportion of the global economy
250
663000
3000
11:21
to ever be represented by slave labor.
251
666000
4000
11:25
Slavery, illegal in every country
252
670000
2000
11:27
has been pushed to the edges of our global society.
253
672000
5000
11:32
And in a way, without us even noticing,
254
677000
3000
11:35
has ended up standing on the precipice
255
680000
2000
11:37
of its own extinction,
256
682000
2000
11:39
waiting for us to give it a big boot
257
684000
3000
11:42
and knock it over. And get rid of it.
258
687000
2000
11:44
And it can be done.
259
689000
2000
11:46
Now, if we do that, if we put the resources
260
691000
2000
11:48
and the focus to it,
261
693000
2000
11:50
what does it actually cost to get people out of slavery?
262
695000
3000
11:53
Well, first, before I even tell you the cost
263
698000
3000
11:56
I've got to be absolutely clear.
264
701000
2000
11:58
We do not buy people out of slavery.
265
703000
4000
12:02
Buying people out of slavery is like
266
707000
2000
12:04
paying a burglar to get your television back;
267
709000
2000
12:06
it's abetting a crime.
268
711000
3000
12:09
Liberation, however, costs some money.
269
714000
2000
12:11
Liberation, and more importantly
270
716000
2000
12:13
all the work that comes after liberation.
271
718000
3000
12:16
It's not an event, it's a process.
272
721000
2000
12:18
It's about helping people to build lives of dignity,
273
723000
3000
12:21
stability, economic autonomy,
274
726000
2000
12:23
citizenship.
275
728000
2000
12:25
Well, amazingly,
276
730000
2000
12:27
in places like India where costs are very low,
277
732000
3000
12:30
that family, that three-generation family that you see there
278
735000
4000
12:34
who were in hereditary slavery --
279
739000
2000
12:36
so, that granddad there, was born a baby into slavery --
280
741000
5000
12:41
but the total cost, amortized
281
746000
2000
12:43
across the rest of the work,
282
748000
2000
12:45
was about 150 dollars to bring that family
283
750000
2000
12:47
out of slavery and then take them through a two year process
284
752000
3000
12:50
to build a stable life of citizenship and education.
285
755000
5000
12:55
A boy in Ghana rescued from fishing slavery, about 400 dollars.
286
760000
3000
12:58
In the United States, North America,
287
763000
2000
13:00
much more expensive. Legal costs, medical costs ...
288
765000
2000
13:02
we understand that it's expensive here:
289
767000
2000
13:04
about 30,000 dollars.
290
769000
2000
13:06
But most of the people in the world in slavery
291
771000
3000
13:09
live in those places where
292
774000
2000
13:11
the costs are lowest.
293
776000
2000
13:13
And in fact, the global average is about what it is
294
778000
3000
13:16
for Ghana.
295
781000
3000
13:19
And that means, when you multiply it up,
296
784000
3000
13:22
the estimated cost of
297
787000
2000
13:24
not just freedom but sustainable freedom
298
789000
3000
13:27
for the entire 27 million people on the planet in slavery
299
792000
4000
13:31
is something like 10.8 billion dollars --
300
796000
3000
13:34
what Americans spend on potato chips and pretzels,
301
799000
3000
13:37
what Seattle is going to spend on its light rail system:
302
802000
3000
13:40
usually the annual expenditure in this country on blue jeans,
303
805000
4000
13:44
or in the last holiday period
304
809000
2000
13:46
when we bought GameBoys and iPods and other tech gifts for people,
305
811000
4000
13:50
we spent 10.8 billion dollars.
306
815000
3000
13:53
Intel's fourth quarter earnings: 10.8 billion.
307
818000
4000
13:57
It's not a lot of money at the global level.
308
822000
2000
13:59
In fact, it's peanuts.
309
824000
2000
14:01
And the great thing about it is that
310
826000
2000
14:03
it's not money down a hole,
311
828000
2000
14:05
there is a freedom dividend. When you let people out of slavery
312
830000
3000
14:08
to work for themselves,
313
833000
2000
14:10
are they motivated?
314
835000
2000
14:12
They take their kids out of the workplace,
315
837000
2000
14:14
they build a school, they say,
316
839000
2000
14:16
"We're going to have stuff we've never had before like three squares,
317
841000
3000
14:19
medicine when we're sick,
318
844000
2000
14:21
clothing when we're cold."
319
846000
2000
14:23
They become consumers and producers
320
848000
2000
14:25
and local economies begin to spiral up very rapidly.
321
850000
5000
14:30
That's important, all of that
322
855000
2000
14:32
about how we rebuild sustainable freedom,
323
857000
2000
14:34
because we'd never want to repeat
324
859000
4000
14:38
what happened in this country in 1865.
325
863000
3000
14:41
Four million people were lifted up out of slavery
326
866000
3000
14:44
and then dumped.
327
869000
3000
14:47
Dumped without political participation,
328
872000
2000
14:49
decent education,
329
874000
2000
14:51
any kind of real opportunity
330
876000
2000
14:53
in terms of economic lives,
331
878000
2000
14:55
and then sentenced to generations of
332
880000
3000
14:58
violence and prejudice and discrimination.
333
883000
2000
15:00
And America is still paying the price
334
885000
2000
15:02
for the botched emancipation of 1865.
335
887000
4000
15:06
We have made a commitment
336
891000
2000
15:08
that we will never let people
337
893000
2000
15:10
come out of slavery on our watch,
338
895000
2000
15:12
and end up as second class citizens.
339
897000
3000
15:15
It's just not going to happen.
340
900000
2000
15:17
This is what liberation really looks like.
341
902000
4000
15:29
Children rescued from slavery in the fishing industry in Ghana,
342
914000
4000
15:33
reunited with their parents,
343
918000
2000
15:35
and then taken with their parents back to their villages
344
920000
2000
15:37
to rebuild their economic well-being
345
922000
2000
15:39
so that they become slave-proof --
346
924000
3000
15:42
absolutely unenslaveable.
347
927000
3000
15:45
Now, this woman
348
930000
2000
15:47
lived in a village in Nepal.
349
932000
2000
15:49
We'd been working there about a month.
350
934000
3000
15:52
They had just begun to come out of a hereditary kind of slavery.
351
937000
4000
15:56
They'd just begun to light up a little bit,
352
941000
2000
15:58
open up a little bit.
353
943000
2000
16:00
But when we went to speak with her, when we took this photograph,
354
945000
2000
16:02
the slaveholders were still menacing us
355
947000
5000
16:07
from the sidelines. They hadn't been really pushed back.
356
952000
3000
16:10
I was frightened. We were frightened.
357
955000
3000
16:13
We said to her, "Are you worried? Are you upset?"
358
958000
3000
16:16
She said, "No, because we've got hope now.
359
961000
4000
16:20
How could we not succeed," she said,
360
965000
4000
16:24
"when people like you from the other side of the world
361
969000
4000
16:28
are coming here to stand beside us?"
362
973000
3000
16:31
Okay, we have to ask ourselves,
363
976000
4000
16:35
are we willing to live in a world with slavery?
364
980000
4000
16:39
If we don't take action, we just leave ourselves open
365
984000
3000
16:42
to have someone else jerk the strings
366
987000
2000
16:44
that tie us to slavery in the products we buy,
367
989000
3000
16:47
and in our government policies.
368
992000
2000
16:49
And yet, if there's one thing that every human being can agree on,
369
994000
4000
16:53
I think it's that slavery should end.
370
998000
4000
16:57
And if there is a fundamental violation
371
1002000
2000
16:59
of our human dignity
372
1004000
3000
17:02
that we would all say is horrific,
373
1007000
2000
17:04
it's slavery.
374
1009000
2000
17:06
And we've got to say,
375
1011000
3000
17:09
what good is all of our intellectual
376
1014000
3000
17:12
and political and economic power --
377
1017000
2000
17:14
and I'm really thinking intellectual power in this room --
378
1019000
4000
17:18
if we can't use it to bring slavery to an end?
379
1023000
3000
17:21
I think there is enough intellectual power in this room
380
1026000
2000
17:23
to bring slavery to an end.
381
1028000
2000
17:25
And you know what? If we can't do that,
382
1030000
3000
17:28
if we can't use our intellectual power to end slavery,
383
1033000
3000
17:31
there is one last question:
384
1036000
3000
17:34
Are we truly free?
385
1039000
2000
17:36
Okay, thank you so much.
386
1041000
2000
17:38
(Applause)
387
1043000
17000
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Kevin Bales - Anti-slavery activistKevin Bales is the co-founder of Free the Slaves, whose mission is to end all forms of human slavery within the next 25 years. He's the author of "Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves."
Why you should listen
As an author, a professor of sociology, and consultant to the United Nations Global Program on Human Trafficking, Kevin Bales is one of the world’s foremost experts on modern slavery. He has made it his mission to eradicate global slavery.
Along with traveling the world doing investigative research, authoring books, racking up human rights awards, and teaming up with Simon Pell to form a fundraising consultant firm, Pell & Bales Ltd., he established Free the Slaves, a nonprofit whose brilliant website is packed with facts and inspirations to action. With Free the Slaves, Bales has mapped out ways to spread the message and gain resources that assign governments, the UN, business, communities and individuals specific roles in the fight to end slavery. In his new book, The Slave Next Door, he explores the relationship of slavery and environmental destruction. Armed with a compelling presence and a hopeful heart, he is enticing the world to help, so that we can all one day say the words: Mission Accomplished.
Kevin Bales | Speaker | TED.com