Kevin Bales

Activist, Change Agent, Educator/Teacher, Idea generator, Parent, Social entrepreneur, Writer/Editor

Going undercover to meet slaves and slaveholders, Kevin Bales exposed how modern slavery penetrates the global economy and flows into the things we buy. Named by Utne Reader as a “visionary who is changing your world;” and the originator of one of “100 World-Changing Discoveries” by the Association of British Universities, he is a leading abolitionist in the last great anti-slavery movement. In 2001 he founded Free the Slaves, the American sister-organization of the UK’s Anti-Slavery International, the world’s oldest human rights group. In eight years it has helped to liberate thousands of slaves in India, Nepal, Haiti, Ghana, Brazil, Ivory Coast, and Bangladesh, and work with them to build new lives of dignity. After reading Bales’ book Ending Slavery, President Clinton told the plenary of the CGI: “It tells you that it is a problem we can solve and here’s how to do it.” This year, with Ron Soodalter, he published The Slave Next Door: Modern Slavery in the United States, an exposé and plan to make America slave-free for the first time in its history.

Ending Slavery Forever

We can end slavery. We know how to do it, it is illegal in every country, no industry or country is economically dependent on slavery, and there is complete moral agreement that it should end. The 27 million slaves in the world today are the smallest proportion of the global population to ever be in slavery. The profits they generate are the smallest fraction of the global economy ever represented by slavery. It has been pushed to edge of our global society and economy. Slavery is standing on the precipice of its own extinction, if we give a good hard kick, we can end it. And when we do many other problems will be positively affected: HIV/AIDS; ethnic violence; corruption; poverty; and environmental destruction and global warming (yes, slaves play a significant part in global warming.) This can be our gift to the planet and our children: for the first time in history - a world without slavery.