Mauritania Abolishes Slavery

Mauritania, a country in North West Africa, officially abolished slavery today in its parliament. The country has a dubious record of being one of the leaders in the world for slave trade. With this passage of this bill offenders will be given a sentence of 5-10 years in jail. In the World there are estimated to be any where from 12 million to 200 million slaves in the world.The U.N. defines a slave as anyone whose movement or decision making abilities are curtailed such that they do not have the right to choose employers. This definition would cover bonded labour to child labour. Debt bondage is one of the most common forms of slavery. This is where labour is exchanged for debt owing.However the worker may be underage,conditions of work may be unsafe and under paid in relations to normal wages. These debts are usually inflated or illegal( ie a parent may give her chid to work thinking that this will reduce her debt). Then these people are held against their will or to the extreme sold. Women in Eastern Europe are being sold for sexual slaves as I write this. Women and children are the most vulnerable to debt bondage.
Modern-day slaves can be found laboring as servants or concubines in Sudan, as child "carpet slaves" in India, or as cane-cutters in Haiti and southern Pakistan, to name but a few instances.