Two Student Orgs Host a Discussion on Modern-Day Slavery

Student org leaders host a socially distanced discussion in the City Room | Photo by Drew Richardson

The International Justice Mission (IJM) and John Quincy Adams Society (JQA) chapters of The King’s College met last Tuesday for a discussion on slavery in supply chains and how students can combat this injustice. 

“There is more slavery in the world right now than there was in the Civil War era,” said Nadja de Sa, President of IJM at King’s.

De Sa presented on the rampant slavery throughout the world, specifically in the shrimp industry of Thailand. Despite the popular thought that slavery is a distant issue, de Sa was quick to point out that companies like Costco, Target and Walmart sell products produced with slave labor—companies most Americans purchase from.

International Justice Mission president Nadja de Sa | Photo by Drew Richardson

This issue is complex. Often, U.S.-based companies set a price floor that producers have to meet, which means the cost of labor must go down. This opens the door to deeply entrenched labor abuse and slavery.

“Unlike Gen X or Millennials, Gen Z has shown themselves to be deeply concerned with trust in corporations,” said de Sa. “Try to be informed on who you’re purchasing from.”

President of the John Quincy Adams Society, Jan Gerber, detailed the foreign policy aspect of slavery in today’s world. He explained that Thailand is undergoing massive unrest with the citizens calling for democracy but the government vowing to uphold the monarchy. This is a roadblock in the fight for an end to slavery. 

“The place from which you solve human trafficking is justice,” said Gerber. “The problem with foreign policy is that justice is not usually a good enough reason to do anything.”

Gerber highlighted two crucial questions: If human trafficking is an international relations issue because of global supply chains, how can countries work together to solve it? Also, how can the U.S. government strengthen Thailand’s hand in dealing with its human trafficking problem?

Madilyn Atcovitz, President of the John Quincy Adams Society, touched on her priorities as president, “[I want] collaboration with different student organizations and [to] be able to reach people who aren’t necessarily interested in foreign policy. Having a joint meeting with International Justice Mission was one of the first meetings we had as an exec team, and it was because of the unintended consequences of foreign policy.”

There are still ways to make a difference even though slavery and human trafficking are deeply rooted problems that “probably won’t be resolved in any of our lifetimes” according to de Sa. 

“The most important thing is to be willing to listen. So much of human trafficking is very scary,” said de Sa.  “To go forward and take it off chunk by chunk and be willing to serve the way Jesus served is what we’re called to do.”