Francis Bok is the author of the first contemporary slave narrative, Escape from Slavery: The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America. Now an abolitionist with the American Anti-Slavery Group, he discussed 21st century human trafficking with McClatchy-Tribune foreign-affairs columnist John C. Bersia.

Of all the voiceless people on Earth, I can think of few more unfortunate than the multitudes — mostly women and children — who toil as modern-day slaves. They typically suffer cruelty, deprivation of their rights and unspeakable living conditions. And they face only two certainties, both unpleasant: that they will wake up tomorrow to [...]

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. – Facing the old slave market from the sea, you can try to imagine what it was like to arrive here as a captive in the 1500s, with a future of forced servitude as your fate. You can try, but you can never grasp the totality of the horror. In those long-gone [...]

When President-elect Barack Obama uttered the word “slavery” in a historical reference during his post-election acceptance speech, I could not avoid making a connection to modern victims of forced servitude around the world.
Slavery is not a relic of the past. Indeed, the problem – also known as human trafficking – has reached epidemic proportions, subjugating [...]

Now that both the Democratic and Republican presidential-campaign teams have a strong component of foreign-policy expertise, how will they use it?
They had better act quickly, because time is short. During the few months before Election Day, voters should demand that the presidential contenders address the international challenges facing the United States with clarity and [...]

Whether Barack Obama’s multi-nation, overseas tour amounts to a political stunt – as critics claim – or not, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president and U.S. senator from Illinois is moving in the right direction. So far, foreign-policy issues have played a pitifully small role in the campaign. To those who believe that discussing Afghanistan, [...]

Cuban officials have issued a predictable condemnation of the latest U.S. Department of State report on human trafficking. The annual assessment (http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/105501.pdf) provides Washington’s view on how nations measure up in dealing with 21st-century slavery – a continuing global tragedy.
According to the report, Cuba earned a miserable rating, ranking among the countries that fall [...]

ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. — The slaves who once stared with terror at prospective buyers in the covered market here in America’s oldest city may be long gone, but tens of millions of their 21st-century brethren wear similar desperate expressions all over the world, including in the United States.
How can we tolerate such a disgrace? How [...]

WASHINGTON — More than two centuries after America’s first president, George Washington, dramatically freed his personal slaves, President George W. Bush grapples with the issue of involuntarily subjugated people. So will his successor, which leads me to ask:
Will human trafficking, as it is now known, ever end? Equally important, does anyone care?

ALEXANDRIA, Va. – In 1799, George Washington, America’s first president, personally took an important but still-debated step against one of the most despicable practices in human society: slavery.