Understanding Modern Slavery and Freedom

They told you slavery ended.

It did not.

It changed its clothes.

Once the chains were iron,

you could see them,

touch them,

so they made them invisible.

Look at your streets.

Millions rushing, tired, afraid.

Free people do not look like this.

The plantation did not disappear.

It moved indoors.

The fields became floors.

A slave is owned.

Ask yourself, who owns your time?

Who owns your debt?

Debt is the new chain.

You sign it yourself,

and you can never put it down.

You work to pay to live.

You live to keep working.

The wheel never stops. The cage is comfortable now.

The door is open,

but the fear keeps you inside.

You pay to sleep. You pay to eat.

You pay rent on your own life.

They took your gold,

then your land.

Now they take your hours.

No one needs to watch you now.

You watch the screen,

and the screen watches back.

They do not beat you anymore.

They distract you.

A distracted mind never asks questions.

They keep you fighting each other.

Left, right, us, them.

Divided, you never look up.

Fear is the lock on the cage.

Be afraid of your neighbor.

Be afraid of tomorrow.

The cruelest trick,

you guard your own prison

and call it freedom.

Freedom starts with seeing.

See the cage.

Name the chains.

Your time is yours.

Spend it like it matters

because it is all you truly own.

They sell you things you do not need

with money you do not have. Need less, and the chain

breaks.

Alone, you are a worker.

Together, you are a people.

No chain holds a united world.

Slavery never disappeared,

but neither did you.

You were never property.