Modern Day Slavery

     This is going to sound so terrible. So don't judge me till I'm done explaining. For my entire life, I've known that slavery is awful. I've known that people were mistreated for years, and what a miracle it was for slaves to be freed. But I've known it like I know the sky is blue. I never actually thought about it. Oh okay, slavery, yeah that sucked, thank God we had Abraham Lincoln, right? I never really, really thought about what it meant. Then, a few weeks ago (I don't remember what brought it up), it hit me. Slavery. People owning people. The idea that ANY human is better than another, enough to feel that they can literally own, like a piece of clothing, someone. To make them do all their work. To scold them. To beat them. It's sick. I know it's absolutely horrible that I've just come to that realization, but that's just how it happened. Maybe because slavery has been taught about at school, sort of as a time period almost, rather than getting into the personal aspect of it.
     I know that slavery is illegal now. I know there aren't slaves in the United States like there were hundreds of year ago, humans that are owned by other humans to do their strenuous work. There's no such thing. But that does not mean there aren't other types of slaves. By definition, a slave is a person who is the property of and wholly subject to another. A bond servant. So no, there aren't slaves like there were years and years ago. But there are still slaves. Slaves to addiction. Slaves to work. Slaves to each other, even still. There are things people do to each other that are too horrible to even imagine. Kidnapping and rape and sex slaves. This all exists, and it is in its own way a form of slavery. Yes, we outlawed slavery. Yes, things are way better than they were. But we still need to watch. We need to watch to make sure these things don't continue to go on in the world. Because it's slavery.