Slavery in Tanakh and Gemara:
In the Torah and the Gemara there are two types of slaves that are mentioned: The עבד כנעני and the עבד עברי. An עבד כנעני is a non-jewish person from the nations of Canaan who was enslaved after his city was conquered instead of killed. Once enslaved he becomes quasi-Jewish, and is obligated in the same mitzvot that a Jewish woman is obligated in. When the slave is freed, he is converted to Judaism and is obligated in all the mitzvot. In ויקרא פרק כה, it says that Jews must take their slaves from the surrounding nations, not other Jews, and an עבד כנעני can never be freed.
The other type of slave mentioned in the Torah and Gemara is an עבד עברי. There are two types of עבד עברי: a Jew who sold himself into slavery, and a Jewish child whose parent sold them into slavery. A Jewish man who sold himself into slavery must be freed during the Shmita year. If he chooses to remain a slave his master must pierce his ear and free him in the next Yovel year. If his master gives him a wife while he is still a slave the slave’s wine and children do not go free when he does. If the man entered slavery with his wife, then his wife and children will go free with him. An עבד עברי must be treated kindly by his master, and is obligated in all the mitzvot. If a father sells his daughter into slavery and her master doesn’t like her, he must set her free. If the master designates her for his son she must marry his son, and if his son marries someone else he is still obligated to take care of her. If her master doesn’t take care of her he will be forced to free her.
The Gemara mentions a lot more rules about an עבד כנעני than the ones that the Torah mentioned. In general an עבד כנעני is not allowed to be freed, but if he is needed for a minyan he can be freed in order to fulfill the mitzvah. If a master gave his slave as a lien to another person, and then immediately afterwards frees the slave. The second master must free the slave for one of two reasons: Either the people who know the slave perceive him as free, or because the second master might still think he owns the slave even though he never really did. If two people share a slave and one of them frees the slave, the other master must free the slave because the slave is obligated in פרו ורבו/שבת. If a female slave is shared between to people and one of the masters frees her the other master must free her as well because she is in an awkward הפקר situation where she can’t get married so men are passing her around and raping her. Lastly, you can’t sell a slave to a non-Jew or someone who lives outside of Israel because we want the slave to be able to keep the mitzvot.
Slavery Today:
Today, approximately 20.9 million people in the world are enslaved. These people are victims to what the United Nations defines as human trafficking: the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means for an improper purpose including forced labor or sexual exploitation. The majority of the world’s enslaved people live and work in India, but enslaved people live all around the world, with different centers for various types of slavery. For example, bonded labor, which is the most common form of slavery today, is most popular in Bangladesh, India, and Nepal. Child labor, on the other hand, is most common in Afghanistan and on the Ivory Coast. Domestic servitude, the coercion of employees working in private homes to serve indefinitely or without pay, is common in Haiti and also present in the United States. People are enslaved today for a plethora of reasons, but most are compelled to work in order to repay a debt of some kind. In the case of domestic servitude, employees are coerced into serving without an option to leave. Many people are also forced into free labor under threats of violence.
Overall, enslavement today is drastically different than the system described in the Gemara. Modern enslavement seems more brutal, and is usually illegal or underground. There are also more kinds of modern slavery than there were in the system set up by the Gemara. On the other hand, an interesting similarity between the two systems is that they both take advantage of foreigners or minorities.
See endslaverynow.org for more information.
Our Area of Focus:
An activist movement designed to fight slavery that we’d like to support is the #AdopttheSeal movement. This movement asks companies to adopt the Freedom Seal, showing that they don’t use slave labor to make their products. Adopting this seal would help raise awareness about modern slavery, and research shows that 66% of people in the US and the UK would stop buying a product if they knew it was made using slave labor. The use of the Freedom Seal would make consumers aware of which companies use slave labor and which don’t, allowing them to make informed decisions about their purchases. In addition, if people stop buying from companies who don’t have the Freedom Seal, it may force them to stop using slave labor in order to get the seal and regain customers.
See http://adopttheseal.org for more information.