Frederick Douglass Essay- Modern Slavery
Frederick Douglass had once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men”. Whether it was children or men who were cast into it, slavery is not nearly close to a humane and morally right activity and should never be tolerated. As seen in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass’ sufferings represent those of all the other Africans who were enslaved since 1960 and show how humans have suffered an unfathomable amount, being scarred, both physically and emotionally since then. The people may have gone away, but the detrimental art of slavery itself has continued on throughout the years.
Human trafficking is another problem beyond just violence and tragedy; it is a demolishing of society. Both child labor trafficking and the enslavement of African Americans forced humans to work against their will in the most brutal conditions possible. However, slavery in the time of Frederick Douglass kidnapped slaves from Africa, while child labor seizes children from all over the world and shows them no other answer than to wait for a savior. Nevertheless, the impressionable children can be empowered and strengthened to seek for their freedom so that someday, it can be gained, just as Frederick Douglass had found his through empowerment. Hiding from slaves the light of freedom, African slavery took place from 1619 to 1865.
Potential slaves were kidnapped from Africa and were forced to walk in slave caravan to the European coastal forts. They were transported through the ‘Middle Passage’ across the Atlantic. Diseases killed off one million to two million slaves during the crossing. Slaves were traded at slave auctions and sent to plantations to work either as a field slave or house slave. Frederick Douglass’ days as a slave had bloody and battering moments, but there were also enlightening times when he looked towards hope. While working on the plantation, he was beaten and whipped for a punishment, or out of pure enjoyment for the violent and cruel master.
Rarely given food or clothes, Douglass was surrounded by the darkness that slavery brought into his life, until the day in which he learned about the liberty that literacy could bring him. Since his childhood, he strived on to teach himself how to read and write, as it was his only hope throughout the days of misery. This power was what brought him to his emancipation. On the other hand, slavery had permeated and grown out of its box though, as there has been no limit or restriction of any sort in the first place. Currently being the second largest criminal industry, child trafficking puts 200,000 American children at risk each year.
Restaurants, agricultural industries, traveling carnivals, peddling and begging rings, and traveling sales crews target children and their pliable and vulnerable minds, abducting them directly or deceiving them by promising them for a better life. Enslaving the children, they destruct their young minds and violently crush the joy of childhood. According to Children At Risk, foreign children are primarily seized from Asia, Latin America, Eastern Europe, and Africa. These children are forced to work for private homes, and small family run businesses on top of the main industries. Children are prevented from attending school and are put into mental and physical pain from imprisonment, rape, and starvation.
Every second of the day, they pray for someone to detect them and deliver them from the bitter burn that slavery thrusts upon them, although many children lose the grasp of hope. This beastly crime denies the opportunity of the children to reach their full potential. Nonetheless, Frederick Douglass’ experiences as a slave and that of the children who are enslaved today are just as cruel and inexplicably heinous as each other. Targets of child trafficking and Frederick Douglass were both kidnapped from their safe havens and family members only to be availed for hard labor against their will. This locked them up in the darkest depths of their minds, and they were blocked out from any freedom, education, or literacy.
However, they both also held the ability to be strengthened. Douglass empowered himself by learning to read and write and freeing himself from being illiterate since he was young. Because of this gain, he developed into a free man. Children who are enslaved today have the same potential. Their minds are more flexible and naive than adults and they can build themselves up with hope instead of being in despair. With the help of people who are aware of their conditions, they can be freed and quickly restored into health and also into the carefree children they were born to be.
Since children have a long, unpredictable future, and impressionable minds, the scars they receive from trafficking could quickly change into starting the first steps of a normal and safe life. Despite their immense struggles and anguish they experience daily, the children have the energy of hope inside to be empowered for freedom, like Douglass found his empowerment when he was at a young age, which helped him to crossing the gateway to liberty. To conclude, the satanic acts of slavery, whether they happened in the past or are happening in the present, are the deepest flaws in society that severely debase and shatter the minds, emotions, and bodies of humans. Being ignorant, the enslavement of Africans in the time of Frederick Douglass kidnapped the slaves from Africa, blocking Douglass from literacy at first; while in contrast; the slavery of child labor trafficking is domestic and international, capturing children from across the globe. Children who are enslaved today are taken from their homes and go through the same sufferings as Frederick Douglass. Both forms of slavery compelled victims to work against their will in harsh conditions, providing them with nothing but starvation and agony.
However, hope still remained for the young Frederick Douglass and will continue remaining for the targets of child trafficking. With their free minds, children can be built into strong people of the future.
