A brief, clear introduction to the tragedy of human trafficking in the 21st century. A 10th-generation Parisian who lives in London, Villa brings a welcome global perspective to her overview of present-day slavery and how readers can fight it. She has served for more than a decade as CEO of the Thomson Reuters Foundation, which promotes human rights, and she draws heavily on that experience as she describes the brutal fates of the estimated 40 million people worldwide who are “forced to work, through fraud or threat of violence, for no pay beyond subsistence.” Roughly 30 percent of the victims are trafficked for sex while 70 percent are trapped in involuntary labor. She includes oral histories of three survivors, two of whom suggest the range of forms modern slavery takes: Deependra Giri, an educated Nepalese man who signed a two-year contract for an office job in Qatar only to have to surrender his passport when he arrived, which meant he couldn’t leave when his employer paid a fraction of the agreed-upon salary; and Marcela Loaiza, a dancer in Colombia lured to Tokyo by a con man who promised to make her famous but whose associates demanded, once she got to Japan, that she pay them $50,000 by working as a prostitute and threatened harm to her family if she didn’t comply. Some of the crimes Villa describes, like sex trafficking, have garnered wide attention, but other shadowy practices are less well known. These include the Kafala, or sponsorship, system in place in the Persian Gulf region, which allows employers to confiscate migrant workers’ passports and deny them exit permits until the company says they can leave. In the most useful parts of the book, Villa instructs readers on what they can do to support anti-slavery efforts, including donating to groups like the Human Trafficking Legal Center, which provides free lawyers for victims. Villa’s use of real names and photos of survivors lends credibility to stories that might otherwise be too shocking to believe.

A vital guide for teachers, nonprofits, and others seeking to understand the global fight against slavery.

Kirkus Reviews

Villa, founder of the global anti slavery organization Trust Conference, makes it clear that slavery exists not only in West Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, and Southeast Asia, but also in the United States. Enslavement takes many forms: sex trafficking, debt peonage, forced domestic labor, and child labor, and all involve deception, exploitation, and threats of violence. Villa use the experiences of several survivors to explain how slavery can hide in plain sight: an American woman forced into prostitution by her boyfriend; a Colombian woman tricked into working as an escort in Japan; and a well-educated, multilingual Nepalese accountant lured into an abusive work environment in Qatar. . . . a powerful, eye-opening look at human exploitation and our complicity as consumers.

Booklist

There are more slaves today in both the developed and less developed worlds than at any other moment in history. On any given day one might encounter someone who is enslaved, and everyone has almost certainly consumed the results of their labor. . . Villa, an investigative journalist and leader of the anti-slavery movement, uses the experiences of three individuals who escaped to illustrate the networks that target, groom, capture, train, traffic, sell, and abuse people, as well as the networks of law and corruption that enable this business to be so immensely profitable. . . Villa identifies practical actions that unaffected individuals can take to rescue people who are trapped and reduce the profitability that encourages their enslavement. This is a must-read for all audiences. . . Highly recommended. All levels.

Choice Reviews

Woven through the book are the first-person accounts of three people who were enslaved . . .Their words are harrowing, in places almost unbearable to read. But there is hope too -- in the courage shown by survivors, and in the chapter on solutions, showing what we can all do to fight back. Perhaps surprisingly, this book is an accessible page-turner as well as being a shocking eye-opener.

Irish Times

In this well-argued, moving, and passionate book, Monique Villa lays out the appalling nature and scale of slavery today. By giving voice to the slaves themselves, showing both their sufferings and their extraordinary humanity and resilience, she underscores her call to action for us all to end this modern scourge.

Margaret MacMillan, historian

As a survivor myself, I know firsthand how Monique’s fierce and relentless drive in fighting modern slavery and empowering those who have endured it has been transformative. Her knowledge and expertise, strengthened over many years of being at the frontline of this fight, is stamped on every page of this book, a real page turner.

Evelyn Chumbow, survivor of forced labor