The question in the title may be offensive to many. After all, this is the 21st Century; slavery in the U.S. was abolished in 1865 – over 100 years ago. But, that doesn’t mean you don’t own slaves. Oh, I don’t mean you have indentured servants working at your beck and call, but you may be indirectly responsible for some of the slavery that still exists in the world today.
That’s right, slavery, while technically illegal in the U.S., is still a problem here and in many parts of the world and you may unknowingly be a part of it. The other day, I happened upon a site called Slavery Footprint. This site will calculate your slavery footprints based on your lifestyle.
Taking the survey, it starts out with basic questions like where you live, your gender, and age. The part I like, well, if you can like such a thing, is it gives us shocking statistics about slavery on each page. For example, did you know that some Pakistani boys are forced into bonded labor (a form of slavery) when they are 13? This contract lasts until the boys reach age 30. Slavery Footprints reminds you that boys who turn 30 this year began their slavery when OJ Simpson drove his white Bronco on the freeway chase with police.
As you continue through the survey, the site asks you how many children you have and what type of toys they own. It also asks if you rent or own, how many bedrooms the house or apartment has, how many cars you own, what you eat, what can be found in your medicine cabinet, what type of jewelry you have (think blood diamonds), and how many electronics you have.
Finally, the survey asks about the clothes you own, makes a joke about how many times you’ve paid for sex (although reminds us that sexual slavery is a very big problem today), then calculates how many slaves you may have working for you to provide you with your lifestyle and where they may be located in the world.
I have 65. You can spread the news about this site through Facebook and Twitter to raise awareness to the slavery problem that still exists in the world today.