I Was a Slave

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Shanti (India, 2001)
Shanti is an Indian woman who was enslaved as a bonded laborer in the rock quarries of Uttar Pradesh, India.
My name is Shanti. I do not know my age. I have five children. My contractor has said, “If you die I will take your dead body out of the mud and make you work to return my debt.” My husband died this year and the contractor gave me no money for his burial. I have a 9-year-old daughter, and the contractor caught her hands and said that he would force her to work to repay my loans. He says I owe 8,000 rupees [$180]. My husband took the loan, and now that he has died the contractor is forcing me and my daughter to pay it back. I tried my best to work somewhere else, but if he does not let me go, what am I to do? He forces me to work for him. I break stones. I break enough to earn 400 rupees [$9], and it takes me 10 or 12 days to achieve that. I don’t even have a place to stay. I stay on someone else’s land. And when they tell me I have to move my little hut, I have to move it.

To Plead Our Own Cause is excerpted with permission of Cornell University Press. Copyright © 2008 Cornell University.

What You Can Do

Abolitionism is one of those dusty words from history’s dank closet, conjuring Harriet Tubman, Frederick Doug­lass, and the Underground Railroad. There’s a modern-day abolitionist movement afoot, and while it does sometimes involve stealthy nighttime escapes, it also works in more up-front ways to dismantle the social, economic, and political conditions that prop up slavery.

In the United States, the most prominent abolitionist group is Free the Slaves. Begun in response to the groundbreaking 1999 book Disposable People by Free the Slaves president Kevin Bales, the organization is the go-to source for the most reliable research about the international slave trade, and it really does what its name suggests.

“Yes, they literally knock down doors and help slaves escape,” Free the Slaves writes about its liberators on its website. “But they also help survivors rebuild their lives, and work for systemic solutions.”

Visit the website (www.freetheslaves.net) to learn more about the slave trade, hear stories by slaves and activists, and find out how to combat slavery in your community as well as in your products and investments.

For more personal narratives in an online exclusive bonus feature, click here.

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