Allow me to quote the New York Times, Dec. 2, 2014, that’s a year and half ago.They (slavery and freedom) are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, “You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.” No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle.
To that list, I would add Sudan where Christian boys from the south are sold, last I heard for about $50, though I imagine with the war slowing down and inflation, the price has gone up. Also on the list Iraq and Syria where Muslims sell Christian girls as young as three and four to fill the harems of the Muslim world and our friend Saudi Arabia where people, especially young Filipino girls come to find work and then to their surprise are not allowed to leave despite horrible abuse. Let us not cluck our tongues and shake our heads.Modern-day slaves include construction workers in the Persian Gulf, girls from Nepal trafficked into prostitution, shrimp fishermen on Thai ships, children in India working in brick kilns and garment workers in Bangladesh. Slavery is also present in prostitution rings, and even in private homes that employ domestic workers in the United States and Europe….. Despite laws that clearly make the practice illegal, slavery is increasing. Women and girls account for 70 percent of those trafficked. Just five countries account for 61 percent of the world’s slaves. India has, by far, more enslaved people than any country — more than 14 million. Three million are enslaved in China; two million in Pakistan; 1.2 million in Uzbekistan and one million in Russia. In Mauritania, which made slavery illegal decades ago but remains prey to an entrenched tradition of slavery, 4 percent of the population is enslaved.
When Europeans moved on to the Americas and “discovered” the great empires of the New World, Pope Paul III condemned the enslavement of the indigenous peoples in 1537. In the bull Sublimus Dei, Pope Paul III prohibited “unjust” kinds of enslavement relating to the indigenous peoples of the Americas and all others. He called enslavers allies of the devil and condemned attempts to justify slavery. What did he mean by “unjust kinds of slavery”? He meant precisely the kind of slavery that we practiced in the United States, chattel slavery based on race. “Chattel” means property. Chattel slavery makes a person a thing. What the Church has always tried to do is to guarantee that even those who are enslaved have basic rights. They may not be treated as things. We have always insisted that every human being is a person, not a thing. To enslave the other because he is not “us” has always been condemned by Catholicism, though individuals who claim to be Christian have often ignored the Gospel and the teaching of the Church, as they still do today.“...They have deprived the natives of their property or turned it to their own use, and have subjected some of the inhabitants of said islands to perpetual slavery, sold them to other persons and committed other various illicit and evil deeds against them... We order and command all and each of the faithful of each sex that, within the space of fifteen days of the publication of these letters in the place where they live, that they restore to their earlier liberty all and each person of either sex who were once residents of said Canary Islands...who have been made subject to slavery. These people are to be totally and perpetually free and are to be let go without the exaction or reception of any money.”