The term “slavery” has been coopted by the left and their captive news media to refer solely to persons of African descent who were held in captivity and under conditions of forced labor from the early 1600’s until 1865. The Civil War gave freedom to 3,900,000 such individuals and the 13th and 14th amendments sought to codify the rights of those given freedom and to prevent anyone from ever being so abused in the United States into the future. It must be noted that it took another 100 years to force the Democratic Party to allow for the passage of civil rights laws to insure the rights granted at the close of the Civil War.

Today persons held in captivity or in involuntary servitude are no longer called slaves, the term having been replaced by “Human Trafficking,” a distinction without a difference.

According to the best information available there are some 25-30 million people held around the world in conditions called slavery or human trafficking, your choice. The United States has an estimated 400,000 people meeting this description.

The media’s response to the tragic events in Georgia concerning the vicious murders in three massage parlors was the impetus for this post. Although the perpetrator stated that his motive was to eliminate the temptation that led him to participate in activities that, while contrary to his desire to be a good Christian, fed his self-diagnosed sexual addiction. He blamed the workers at the massage parlors for his sick thought patterns.

Despite hearing what the killer stated as his motivation, the media immediately described the murders as hate crimes against Asians, caused by ex President Donald Trump’s insistence on calling Covid-19 “The China Virus.” The pathology of Trump-phobia aside, this incident has opened an opportunity for a national discussion on the tragic circumstances of human trafficking. Such a discussion is even more timely now that the Southern border has been opened and tens of thousands of people are flooding in, among them a great many who are victims of human trafficking and who will eventually end up in involuntary servitude and sex slavery.

While the victims number in the hundreds of thousands, prosecutions and convictions are only in the high hundreds to low one thousands. This is an intolerable situation. The reason for so little law enforcement is variously given as cloudy jurisdiction and a mish-mash of conflicting laws, local and federal. I would add the interference of highly placed special interests who greatly profit from the status quo.

Most of us have, at one time or another, read or heard a report of a local crime that took place in a “known crack house,” or “a known brothel.” The question is never asked, if the location was so known, why was it allowed to operate?

That massage parlors offer sexual services or that a great many people are engaged in forced labor in sweat shops comes as no surprise. What should be surprising is why the majority of citizens in this great country do not care?

There are many organizations, easily found by a web search, which are dedicated to addressing the problem of human trafficking but they do not have the benefit of law. Several Federal agencies claim jurisdiction and pontificate about their efforts but those efforts seem to be confined to issuing self-aggrandizing reports. Local law enforcement seems to be equally impotent.

Human trafficking, slavery, whatever the term, the conversation is long overdue and we need to demand effective laws and effective law enforcement. The time is long past for slavery under any name to be eradicated from the planet.