The Modern Slave Trade Course

This course examines the various forms of slavery that exist today, focusing on sex trafficking, debt bondage, and other types of forced labor. The first half of the course will provide a survey of different aspects of the modern day slave trade and equip students with a basic understanding of the history, economics, socio-cultural, and political facets of this problem. We will also discuss possible solutions to the problem and invite at least one guest speaker who has conducted extensive research on this topic.
During the second half of the course, students to explore topics in which they are personally interested that pertain to the modern day slave trade to deepen their understanding of this problem. To accomplish this, we will provide a list of potential topics for them to choose from or they will propose their own research topic, and make a presentation on this topic for the rest of the class. The purpose of these presentations is to give students the opportunity to practice speaking in public about modern slavery.
After the conclusion of this course, our hope is that each student will walk away with not only a deeper understanding of the modern slave trade, but that they will use this knowledge to spread awareness of this issue and continue to actively be a part of the modern abolitionist movement.
We first began teaching this course during the Fall 2007 semester at UC Berkeley. We had 18 students, all undergraduates, enrolled and throughout the semester they undertook several projects to raise awareness on the Berkeley campus and throughout the Bay Area. The students' projects including designing and selling a fair-trade t-shirt as a fundraiser for an international NGO working to free slaves, student presentations in the campus dorms to encourage freshman to get involved during their college careers, and the beginning of a business and corporation rating system to make people aware of the intersections between the global business climate and human rights. Our class was a great success and will be taught again in Spring 2008, this time with more student projects and possble fieldwork with anti-trafficking NGOs.

Project mission:

We hope to use this course as a way to raise awareness of modern slavery and human trafficking while giving students on the Berkeley campus a way to involve themselves in real work to solve this problem.

Potential impact:

The first step in ending slavery during our lifetime is to get people aware of the fact that slavery still exists. Once people know the truth, they can then mobilize to take action through NGOs and legislation to help free the world's 27 million slaves, restore their livelihoods and bring an end to slavery.

Required resources:

1. Total project needs: $5,000

Our sponsors:

The Bears Breaking Boundaries Program, our course sponsor Professor Darren Zook.