Chains that change shape by Virginia Robertson

Why the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery Still Belongs to the 21st Century

Every year, the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery appears on the calendar like a stern reminder that humanity has a very short memory. We commemorate victories—laws passed, chains broken, tyrannies overthrown and then, with disquieting ease, assume the work is finished. But the 21st century excels at reinvention, and slavery is no exception. The chains have changed shape. They are lighter, quieter, digital, contractual, and in many cases, self-concealing. We are living in an age where exploitation dresses up in the language of opportunity and where “freedom” has been reduced to a marketing slogan.

We prefer to think slavery lives only in textbooks and the darker corners of documentaries. It is more comfortable that way. But anyone who has spent time listening, really listening to migrant workers, asylum seekers, or the uncounted army of domestic labourers knows otherwise. Modern slavery is not an aberration; it is an industry. Human trafficking is its most lucrative wing. And while the global economy prides itself on efficiency, it has been equally efficient at absorbing these exploitative systems, smoothing their sharp edges until the atrocities blend seamlessly into supply chains and labour markets.

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery forces us to confront an inconvenient truth: liberation did not end in the 19th century. It mutated in the 20th and metastasized in the 21st. Today’s traffickers do not need whips and auctions; they have paperwork, debt, forged promises, and the anonymity of the internet. They exploit borders, wars, fragile states, and desperate families. Their victims rarely appear on news cycles, unless discovered in mass graves, shipping containers, or brothels masquerading as wellness studios.

We must resist the urge to interpret modern slavery as something happening “elsewhere.” The geography of exploitation has never respected borders. In fact, the wealthier the country, the more invisible the forced labour tends to be. It hides in the guest room of a well-to-do family employing an undocumented woman under the illusion of kindness. It hides in farms worked by labourers whose passports are conveniently “held for safekeeping.” It hides in construction projects where the workers' names are unknown and their injuries unreported. And, most perniciously, it hides in our digital marketplaces, where human trafficking has found its most streamlined recruiting tool.

This is not simply a moral issue; it is a structural one. We live in a world that rewards exploitation when it is disguised well enough. The 21st century has mastered the art of outsourcing responsibility. As long as the consumer does not see the suffering behind the product, the system functions smoothly. If slavery once relied on physical force, today it thrives on social invisibility, economic vulnerability, and our collective appetite for convenience without consequence.

Yet the conversation around human trafficking is often trapped in clichés. We talk about “raising awareness,” as if awareness alone could dismantle systems that prey on inequity. Awareness without accountability is performative empathy. What we need instead is discomfort, a willingness to look without flinching at how our own societies, our own economies, and yes, even our own daily choices intersect with exploitation. We need to abandon the comforting narrative that trafficking is the result of individual bad actors. It is the outcome of global systems that treat human beings as expendable units of labour.

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery should force us to reckon not only with moral outrage but with policy and power. If nations truly wanted to confront trafficking, they would strengthen labour protections, enforce transparency in supply chains, provide safe migration pathways, and ensure that victims are treated as victims, not criminals. They would dismantle the loopholes that allow companies to outsource responsibility for labour abuses. They would fund shelters, legal aid, and long-term support for survivors rather than stage photo-op raids that rescue without rebuilding.

But perhaps the most underexplored aspect of modern slavery is its psychological dimension. The old slave systems relied on the overt denial of humanity. Today’s systems rely on something subtler: erasure. Victims disappear not only from legal protections but from public imagination. They are seen only as silhouettes, anonymous workers, nameless migrants, “those people.” The trafficker’s first crime is physical control; the system’s crime is collective indifference.

And so this day, this somber date on the global calendar, demands more from us than ritual acknowledgment. It demands that we admit how much of the modern world is built on the remnants of an old one. The economic hunger that once fueled slave ships has simply recalibrated itself. The logic remains: maximize profit, minimize cost, and rely on the vulnerability of the desperate.

Anyone who believes abolition is a finished project has not been paying attention. Slavery today does not shock because it has been normalized. Human trafficking does not outrage because it has been sanitized. We do not see chains, so we assume no one is bound.

The longest-standing myth about freedom is that it is self-sustaining. It is not. It requires maintenance, vigilance, and, at times, confrontation with the systems we benefit from. If the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery still matters and it does, it is because it reminds us that progress is not linear and justice is not inevitable.

We are still living in the age of abolition. We just haven’t admitted it.