Similarities and Differences in Ancient and Modern Slavery

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Slavery has been a main problem in the world for centuries. Slavery goes back to Babylon over 2,500 years ago and it is still a growing problem in the modern society. Slavery is not just one dimensional; it involves gender, race and physical appearance of a slave. In this paper, I am going to compare and contrast David Brion Davis’ view of ancient slavery along with modern day slavery by Ryan J. Dalton, and discuss why they are not similar with each other. In Modern Day Slavery by Ryan J. Dalton, discuss the problem of human trafficking in Tennessee. Dalton mention that women and children were forced into prostitution by gangs and other organized crime groups to earn money. This is different from ancient slavery discussed by David Brion Davis in Inhuman Bondage, slaves were captured and they could be raped and quickly sold. The difference between modern and ancient slavery in sex are modern slave trafficking’s main goal is to earn profit by the owner while ancient slave owner rape their slave without profit.
In Modern Slavery, Dalton explained how women and children were forced into slavery by using Terrance Yarbrough’s crime as an example. Dalton wrote “Victims testified to being beaten by Yarbrough with padlocks, crowbars and dog chains, and being burned with irons and scalding hot water in order to force the woman into prostitution.” (Daltn, 13) The women who were abducted by Yarbrough include young girls as young as only fifteen years old. Human trafficking victims were not born into slavery like most natural slaves. Human trafficking victims were forced into prostitution by the abductor. Like Aristotle’s idea of free men are not suitable of slave world and should be useful from community life, human trafficking victims were...

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...intended to make the bodies of free man and of slaves different also; slaves’ bodies strong for the services they have to do, those of free men upright and not much use for the kind of work, but instead useful from community life.” (Davis, 34)
In conclusion, ancient slavery and modern slavery are similar but different in general. Slaves were usually born into slavery for ancient slavery while sex trafficking victims were captured and forced into slavery. The main purpose of ancient slavery were slave labor and treated worse than dogs, while the main purpose of human trafficking is to gain profit from what sex trafficking victims earn. Also, ancient slavery was legal while sex trafficking is not. Although there are many difference between ancient and modern day slavery, we could still agree that both are extremely dehumanizing and should eliminate slavery on earth.

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