The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there,” wrote L.P. Hartley.

So true, nowadays as well!

Anti-slavery is very nearly a uniquely western European (primarily British) idea.

Although there were times when Britain was a major player in the Atlantic Slave Trade, they were rarely THE major player with the vast majority of slaves being carried by the Iberians to their (largely) South America empire. By the time it was bought to a close, two-thirds of all slaves had gone to South America (mainly Brazil) and less than 5% to mainland North America, the rest going to the various Caribbean islands.

Meanwhile, as the trade across the Atlantic ebbed and flowed, captured white Europeans were being traded in North Africa and the Ottoman empire at similar scales.

The idea to abolish slavery came solely from western Europe and without their efforts, slavery would have continued as it had for millennia. Equally, the notion of human rights is a western European idea and exists in the world today solely due to the efforts of western Europeans.

Consequently these things (human rights and anti-slavery) exist only so long as western European ideas remain paramount. As the west declines in prestige and enforceability, so their influence of world thought will decline.

Already we've seen, in those parts of the world where the west has less influence, slavery rear its head. We've seen in the recent past and entire peoples (the Yazidi) enslaved and slavery reappearing in northern Africa. Equally, human rights hold no influence in the western provinces of the Han Empire (China) or most of Africa.

It is a very normal thing to think of the defeat of slavery as a permanent victory. But there will come a time when historians will look at the few centuries when western Liberalism held sway as a strange though wonderful interlude. The world will revert to its more normal processes where peoples and nations are enslaved and human rights are things that have no place outside the philosophy texts.

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Forced labour, indentured labour, child labour, human trafficking, sexual exploitation, forced marriage, forced domestic work …, whatever form it may take, according to the UN agency, ILO (International Labour Organisation), more people are submitted to some form of slavery today than at any other time in history (50 million in 2021) :

http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---ipec/documents/publication/wcms_854733.pdf

Modern slavery is mostly in the Asia-Pacific region (55%), followed by Europe and Central Asia (15%), Africa (14%) and the Americas (13%) – all of which count for a total of 97% of world slavery.

Australia is noted as the least vulnerable country to slavery in the Asia-Pacific region and the country most active in combatting it.

According to The Global Slavery Index 2023 :

1. « On any given day in 2021, there were 41,000 individuals living in modern slavery in Australia. This equates to a prevalence of 1.6 people in modern slavery for every thousand people in the country » :

2. « The Australian Modern Slavery Act (2018) defines and recognises orphanage trafficking as a form of modern slavery under the Act’s definition »

http://cdn.walkfree.org/content/uploads/2023/05/17114737/Global-Slavery-Index-2023.pdf
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The US Department of State’s 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report indicates for Australia :

« As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Australia, and traffickers exploit victims from Australia abroad. Traffickers exploit women and men in forced labor and women and girls in sex trafficking. Traffickers exploit a small number of children, primarily teenage Australian and foreign girls, in sex trafficking within the country. Some women from Asia and, to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe and Africa migrate to Australia to work legally or illegally in a number of sectors, including commercial sex. After their arrival, traffickers compel some of these women to enter or remain in commercial sex in both legal and illegal commercial sex establishments, as well as massage parlors, motels, and private apartments » :

http://www.state.gov/reports/2023-trafficking-in-persons-report/australia/#:~:text=Traffickers%20exploit%20a%20small%20number,of%20sectors%2C%20including%20commercial%20sex.

It seems we are doing pretty well so far as slavery is concerned – at least compared to the rest of the world.

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I should note that Graham's main point was that the western victory over slavery throughout the world ought to be celebrated, and I fully endorse that. Indeed, it would do us all good to celebrate all the successes and virtues of western civilisation in order to preserve it for as long as possible.

There is an estimated 50 million people living in slavery in the world today. In Australia there is an estimated 1.6 per 1000 people in slavery. Some are refugees caught in an economic trap and being exploited by unscrupulous employers. There is also sex slaves imported under false pretences, and then placed in a slave environment, exploited by a criminal element.

What Aspley says!
Alan B.