Slave trade

[Gail]

I have heard that there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in history.

Firstly, can someone substantiate that?

And- doesn't that thought astound you?

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

Lots of various statistics out there.... here's one website listing ranking per country: http://www.globalslaveryindex.org/findings/

estimated 28.3 million - 31.3 million in slavery today

COUNTRIES WITH HIGHEST PREVALENCE OF MODERN SLAVERY

Rank / Country

1 Mauritania

2 Haiti

3 Pakistan

4 India

5 Nepal

6 Moldova

7 Benin

8 Côte d’Ivoire

9 The Gambia

10 Gabon

However, I don't know if the ratio of slavery:population is higher now than at any time in the world's history...

[phkrause]

When you say slavery, do you mean slavery or servants? To me servants are those that actually want to do this, as slaves are people that are forced to do there "so called job!"

[LifeHiscost]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin#Calculating_the_number_of_victims

Quote:

Main article: Stalinism

Stalin and his supporters have highlighted the notion that socialism can be built and consolidated by a country ("Socialism in One Country") as underdeveloped as Russia during the 1920s. Indeed this might be the only means in which it could be built in a hostile environment.[100] In 1933, Stalin put forward the theory of aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism, arguing that the further the country would move forward, the more acute forms of struggle will be used by the doomed remnants of exploiter classes in their last desperate efforts – and that, therefore, political repression was necessary.

In 1936, Stalin announced that the society of the Soviet Union consisted of two non-antagonistic classes: workers and kolkhoz peasantry. These corresponded to the two different forms of property over the means of production that existed in the Soviet Union: state property (for the workers) and collective property (for the peasantry). In addition to these, Stalin distinguished the stratum of intelligentsia. The concept of "non-antagonistic classes" was entirely new to Leninist theory. Among Stalin's contributions to Communist theoretical literature were "Dialectical and Historical Materialism," "Marxism and the National Question", "Trotskyism or Leninism", and "The Principles of Leninism."

Calculating the number of victims

Before the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union, researchers who attempted to count the number of people killed under Stalin's regime produced estimates ranging from 3 to 60 million.[101] After the Soviet Union dissolved, evidence from the Soviet archives also became available, containing official records of 799,455 executions 1921–53,[102] around 1.7 million deaths in the Gulag and some 390,000 deaths during kulak forced resettlement – with a total of about 2.9 million officially recorded victims in these categories.[103]

Photo from 1943 exhumation of mass grave of Polish officers killed by NKVD in Katyń Forest in 1940.

The official Soviet archival records do not contain comprehensive figures for some categories of victims, such as those of ethnic deportations or of German population transfers in the aftermath of World War II.[104] Eric D. Weitz wrote, "By 1948, according to Nicolas Werth, the mortality rate of the 600,000 people deported from the Caucasus between 1943 and 1944 had reached 25%."[105][106] Other notable exclusions from NKVD data on repression deaths include the Katyn massacre, other killings in the newly occupied areas, and the mass shootings of Red Army personnel (deserters and so-called deserters) in 1941. The Soviets executed 158,000 soldiers for desertion during the war,[107] and the "blocking detachments" of the NKVD shot thousands more.[108] Also, the official statistics on Gulag mortality exclude deaths of prisoners taking place shortly after their release but which resulted from the harsh treatment in the camps.[109] Some historians also believe that the official archival figures of the categories that were recorded by Soviet authorities are unreliable and incomplete.[110][111] In addition to failures regarding comprehensive recordings, as one additional example, Robert Gellately and Simon Sebag Montefiore argue that the many suspects beaten and tortured to death while in "investigative custody" were likely not to have been counted amongst the executed.[27][112]

Historians working after the Soviet Union's dissolution have estimated victim totals ranging from approximately 4 million to nearly 10 million, not including those who died in famines.[113][114][115] Russian writer Vadim Erlikman, for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million out of 7.5 million deported; and POWs and German civilians, 1 million – a total of about 9 million victims of repression.[116]

Some have also included the deaths of 6 to 8 million people in the 1932–1933 famine among the victims of Stalin's repression. This categorization is controversial however, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks and others,[58][117][118][119][120] or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization.[74][121][122]

Accordingly, if famine victims are included, a minimum of around 10 million deaths—6 million from famine and 4 million from other causes—are attributable to the regime,[123] with a number of recent historians suggesting a likely total of around 20 million, citing much higher victim totals from executions, Gulag camps, deportations and other causes.[124][125][126][127][128][129][130] Adding 6–8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a total of between 15 and 17 million victims. Researcher Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[131] In his most recent edition of The Great Terror (2007), Conquest states that while exact numbers may never be known with complete certainty, the various terror campaigns launched by the Soviet government claimed no fewer than 15 million lives.[132] RJ Rummel maintains that the earlier higher victim total estimates are correct, although he includes those killed by the Soviet government in other Eastern European countries as well.[133][134]

Any person who lived through the 2nd world war and the Jewish holocaust and the subsequent cold war years while Stalin's government with dictatorial powers decimated their own people, not to mention the present day arrest and imprisonment of some 30,000 Christians by the North Koreans, does not find Walter Veight going beyond what any reasonably intelligent person can accept, along with the Biblical history that clearly reveals the U.S. is following the same pathway as the Roman Empire as a result of turning away from God's express will for His people.

God cares! Jesus saves!

[rudywoofs (Pam)]

LHC, did you post to the wrong thread? I don't find anything in the above even remotely related to slavery...

[james423]

I think you'll find that most of the figures you are citing are just estimates, not hard numbers. What is certain is that no country in the world is totally free from slavery, not even the U.S. But much of this slavery, at least in the U.S., is illegal. However, if a "slave" holder doesn't get caught..