In his seminal work on modern slavery, Kevin Bales does away with certain, antiquated concepts. In its insidious, older form, one focused on the concept of natal alienation, slaves were chattels and assets, outrightly owned. Each slave system was distinct and protean, if marked by certain universal features.

The universal feature of ownership, at least when it comes to its modern iteration, has little role to play in the modern slave system. The modern slave can be found in abundance. Disposability is its vital feature, abundance of vulnerable persons its source. Care for human welfare is of secondary concern. Bales, in Disposable People, offers up five studies with a specific focus on a relevant industry or trade: prostitution in Thailand; the water sale market in Mauritania; the charcoal industry in Brazil; brickmaking in Pakistan; and indentured farm labour in India.

Such work, for all its stately horror, focuses on the dynamics and practices of specific industries in selected countries. Another feature, as terrifying, is the international market for such disposable people, who pullulate the economies of developed countries, working in conditions unseen and undocumented. The modern slaver, in such instances, is obscured behind regulatory opacity, a hidden puppeteer often protected by a vast fortune and public ignorance.

On June 21, four members of the Hinduja family, the UK’s wealthiest according to the 2024 Sunday Times Rich List with an estimated value of £37.196 billion, were convicted in a........

© The AIM Network