After reading the preface and first two chapters of the book “Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy” by Kevin Bales, the reader perceives the topic of new slavery clearer and from different angles. The author brings up the issue of the ongoing modern enslavement of people all over the world. Bales pushes us to think about the problem as the one affecting every human and discloses how widespread and violent slavery remains to be. The author estimates the current number of slaves to be 27 million people and highlights the major reasons causing the prolongation of human trafficking. The immense increase of the population after World War II and the influence of development and globalization of the world’s economy on traditional families in developing countries have led to the increment in the gap between the elite and poverty. Humans infrequently assess the slavery issue from the largescale, and these factors leading to ongoing human bondage stay major and crucial for its prolongation.
Bales emphasizes the changes in modern slavery relationships and accentuates that current interconnections between slaves and their owners are worse in a variety of factors than in previous times. For instance, today, the slave market has expanded as there is no connection to ethnicity anymore and legal ownership is not obligatory. Therefore, the attitude to slaves was cheap; they were estimated as disposable and easily replaced workers. With the help of the author, we understand how human life is disvalued and underestimated nowadays in such countries as Thailand, Brazil, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and many others. The major reflection Bales brings a reader to is that human enslavement remains an up-to-date issue even though the majority of people rarely face it and think it is over. The current world needs changes in human rights protection and legitimatization of labor rules so various people of different incomes and country origins can be respected and treated equally.