Disposable People by Kevin Bales

Disposable People

by 

Kevin Bales

After wanting to read this book for the last three or four years,  I finally finished it last night.  It is not available in Kindle format and I really struggle when I can't adjust the font size or have the light that the reader provides.  Also,  although I enjoy non fiction articles,  as I mentioned before,  non fiction books are not my first choice to read.  But this book is one that is an important one to read, and I am glad that I took the effort to get it read.  It is about the slavery that is still going on today.  Although illegal internationally,  slavery still happens in every country of the world.  And as with most illegal activity to shine a light on it makes it shrink.  On page 247 the author,  Kevin Bales,  refers to this as "name and shame".  Just making ourselves aware of the situation is a threat to those who are working with slave labor today.  If we know that slaves in Brazil are making charcoal (to use one example in the book)  and that the charcoal is used in the steel mills of Brazil, and the same steel is used in the automotive parts plants in Mexico and then ends up in our cars,  and we know which car companies are using this steel,  and  we make these car companies aware we know and are looking at other cars as a result,  then the  the car companies become concerned with looking for a better supply chain.   The same is true with any company that uses sugar,  or cocoa,  or many other commodities.  The trick is to educate ourselves to where the problems are and not to associate ourselves with this illegal and inhumane activity.  Kevin Bales writes in his preface that when doing the research for this book he found he developed PTSD as a result and I experienced nightmares after reading some of the sections.  As a result of reading this book I have added the blogs from Free The Slaves and Not For Sale to my home page so that I am aware as new information is made available and I am determined to continue to educate myself on this topic.  I encourage others to educate themselves also.  Please click on the title and author's name to follow the links to more information and watch the video below.  Also read this book.  All proceeds from the sale of the book goes to the Free The Slaves foundation.  So after you read it and pass the book on,  buy a few more books for other people you know.  There has been progress in this problem of slavery since the book was written and CNN ran their series on slavery a few  years ago.   Never the less,  it is important to keep this information in the forefront.