·
2000 Free the Slaves is formed, originally as the sister
organization of Anti-Slavery International in the U.K. Today Free the Slaves is
an independent organization.
·
2000 The government of Nepal bans all forms of debt
bondage after a lengthy campaign by human rights organizations and freed
laborers.
·
2000 The U.S. Congress passes the Trafficking Victims
Protection Act to combat the trafficking of persons as a form of modern
slavery. The legislation increases penalties for traffickers, provides social
services for trafficking victims, and helps victims remain in the country.
·
2000 The U.N. passes the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress,
and Punish Trafficking in Persons as part of the Convention against
Transnational Organized Crime. The trafficking protocol is the first global
legally binding instrument with an internationally agreed-upon definition on
trafficking in persons.
·
2001 Slavery: A Global Investigation—the first
major documentary film about modern slavery—is released in the U.S. and Europe.
The film tells the story of slavery and forced child labor in the cocoa and
chocolate industry and wins a Peabody Award and two Emmy Awards.
·
2002 The countries of the Economic Community of Western
African States agree on an action plan to confront slavery and human
trafficking in the region.
·
2002 The International Cocoa Initiative is established as
a joint effort of anti-slavery groups and major chocolate companies—marking the
first time an entire industry has banded together to address slavery in its
supply chain.
·
2004 Brazil launches the National Pact for the
Eradication of Slave Labor, which combines the efforts of civil organizations,
businesses, and the government to get companies to commit to the prevention and
eradication of forced labor within their supply chains, as well as to be
monitored and placed on a “dirty list” if the products they sell are tainted by
slavery.
·
2004 The U.N. appoints a Special Rapporteur (Reporter) on
Human Trafficking.
·
2005 The U.N. International Labor Organization’s first
Global Report on Forced Labor puts the number of slaves worldwide at 12.3
million. The organization’s 2012 update increases the number to 20.9 million
people.
·
2007 Ending Slavery: How We Free Today’s Slaves is
published. Written by Free the Slaves co-founder Kevin Bales, it is the first
plan for the global eradication of modern slavery, estimating the total cost of
worldwide abolition at $10.8 billion over 25 years. President Bill Clinton
highlights the plan at the Clinton Global Initiative. The book receives the
2011 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.
·
2008 The Special Court for Sierra Leone judges forced
marriage “a crime against humanity” and convicts three officers in the
Revolutionary United Front of forced marriage—the first convictions of their
kind within an international criminal tribunal.
·
2008 The U.N. International Labor Organization estimates
that annual profits generated from trafficking in human beings are as high as
$32 billion. In 2014 the organization increases that estimate to $150 billion
in the report Profits and Poverty: The Economics of Forced Labor.
·
2010 Free the Slaves publishes Slavery,
featuring images of slaves and survivors taken by humanitarian photographer
Lisa Kristine and a foreword by South African Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Kristine receives a 2013 Humanitarian Photographer of the Year Award from the
Lucie foundation based in large part on her work with Free the Slaves.
·
2011 California enacts the California Transparency in
Supply Chains Act, requiring major manufacturing and retail firms to publicly
disclose what efforts, if any, they are taking to eliminate forced labor and
human trafficking from their product supply chains.
·
2012 The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission passes
the Conflict Minerals Rule, requiring major publicly-held corporations to
disclose if their products contain certain metals mined in the eastern Congo or
an adjoining country and if payment for these minerals supports armed conflict
in the region. The rule was required as part of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street
Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Free the Slaves has documented that slavery
is widespread at mining sites covered by this corporate disclosure requirement.
·
2013 The first Walk Free Global Slavery Index is released
with country-by-country estimates for slavery worldwide. The research team
estimates that 29.8 million people are enslaved today. The 2014 index increases
that estimate to 35.8 million. The 2016 index increases that estimate to 45.8
million.
·
2015 Free the Slaves marks its 15th birthday by
announcing that the organization has reached a historic benchmark—liberating
more than 10,000 people from slavery.
·
2015 The U.N. adopts 17 Sustainable Development
Goals, with 169 targets that include an end to slavery: “Take immediate and
effective measures to eradicate forced labor, end modern slavery and human
trafficking and secure the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of
child labor, including recruitment and use of child soldiers, and by 2025 end
child labor in all its forms.”
·
2017 A research consortium including the U.N.
International Labor Organization, the group Walk Free, and the U.N.
International Organization for Migration release a combined global study
indicating that 40 million people are trapped in modern forms of slavery
worldwide: 50 percent in forced labor in agriculture, manufacturing,
construction, mining, fishing and other physical-labor industries; 12.5 percent
in sex slavery, and 37.5 percent in forced marriage slavery.
Many historical
timeline entries are adapted from New Slavery: A Reference Handbook by
Kevin Bales, Second Edition, Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004, pp. 55-68. Source:
Free the Slaves
