There’s a major difference between today’s modern slaves and the slaves we read about in our American history books.

As I was relating to a friend that there are more slaves in the world today than at any other time in human history, it hit me… one thing about modern slavery is fundamentally different. Slavery is sinister at best, but this brand of slavery is even worse than previous brands of slavery. Slaves today have almost no value to their owners. They are cheap and disposable.

As I began to research this, it was clear, this is not a unique thought. In 1999, Paul Stickley said this:

There are “more slaves alive today than all the people stolen from Africa in the time of the transatlantic slave trade,” writes Kevin Bales. He estimates there are more than 27 million people “enslaved by violence and held against their wills for purposes of exploitation” and the number is increasing. A feature of the new slavery is that slaves become disposable once the slaveholder has used them.

In the last century in the American South a slave owner might pay the equivalent of up to $100,000 for a slave. This was an incentive to keep a slave alive. Today a slaveholder can enslave a worker for as little as a $20 debt. It is not profitable to keep them if they are not immediately useful or become ill.

The truth of this is sickening.

Read More about Slavery In The Modern Era .