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Published Oct 2012
336 pages
Genre: History, Current Affairs and Religion
Publication Information
In Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, Siddharth Kara conducted one of the most comprehensive, systematic accounts of the global sex-trafficking industry. His book became a widely consulted resource not only for its uncommon revelations into an unconscionable business but also for its detailed analysis of the trade's immense economic benefits and corresponding human costs. Sex Trafficking has become an invaluable resource for policy makers, women's and human rights activists, NGO workers, and specialists in dozens of related fields, as well as for university scholars and everyday citizens.
Bonded Labor: Tackling the System of Slavery in South Asia is Kara's second explosive study of slavery, this time focusing on the pervasive, deeply entrenched, and wholly unjust system of bonded labor. From his eleven years of research in India, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, Kara delves into this ancient and ever-evolving mode of slavery, which ensnares roughly six out of every ten slaves in the world and generates profits that exceeded $17.6 billion in 2011. In addition to providing a thorough economic, historical, and legal overview of bonded labor, Kara travels to the far reaches of South Asia, from cyclone-wracked southwestern Bangladesh to the Thar desert on the India-Pakistan border, to uncover the brutish realities of bonded labor in such industries as hand-woven-carpet making, tea and rice farming, construction, brick manufacture, and frozen-shrimp production. He describes the violent enslavement of millions of impoverished women, children, and men who toil in the production of numerous products at minimal cost to the global market. He also follows supply chains directly to Western consumers, vividly connecting regional bonded labor practices to the appetites of the world. Kara's pioneering analysis encompasses human trafficking, child labor, and global security, and he concludes with ten specific initiatives to eliminate the system of bonded labor from South Asia once and for all.
"Starred Review. Passionate, yet data-driven and absent of sensationalism, Kara's spotlight on debt bondage, warrants profound attention." - Publishers Weekly
"Siddharth Kara's exploration of bonded labor in South Asia is perhaps the most ambitious and reasoned treatment of this form of slavery in the modern era...This is a must read for all that want to better understand the trajectory of the global economy and its influence and impact on labor." - Randy Newcomb, President/CEO, Humanity United
"You cannot change what you do not know. Siddharth Kara delivers an eye opening view of bonded labor, jolting the reader into acute awareness of one of the most insidious forms of modern day slavery inciting us to act to end this human degradation and crime against humanity." - Anne Archer, Founder, Artists for Human Rights
"The book you hold in your hands is a tool for a slave-free future. Incisive, relevant, and composite, it offers the latest data on bonded labor in South Asia, argues brilliantly that choice is irrelevant to bondage, and has new "how-to" tools for activism. A must-read for all those who work against modern day slavery." - Ruchira Gupta, President and Founder, Apne Aap Women Worldwide
"Comprehensively and intelligently researched, though it wears its erudition lightly. Bonded Labour is beautifully lucid, a compelling mixture of history, investigative journalism, personal testimony and trenchant socio-economic criticism." - Jacqueline Bhabha, Director of Research, FXB Center for Health and Human Rights, Harvard University
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in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Siddharth Kara is one of the world's foremost experts on human trafficking and contemporary slavery. He holds positions on human trafficking at two centers at Harvard University, the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at the Kennedy School of Government and the FXB Center for Health and Human Rights. Kara speaks and consults extensively on contemporary slavery worldwide and advises several governments on antislavery policy and law. His first book, Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery, received Yale University's prestigious Frederick Douglass Book Prize.
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