September 9, 2003 journal, National Geographic reports on human slavery internationally. The world thinks of slavery as pertaining to the black race only and their cotton field days. In 1860 when the South refused to pay 42 percent tax on its cotton exports to the Union, this resulted in the civil war and the slaves being freed as a last-minute vengeance against the South. Today slavery is more prolific than ever in history, its being practiced in every country of the world. "From the editor - National Geographic September, Panneer is 10 years old. He winds thread 14 hours a day for looms in Kanchipuram, India. His fingers bleed, his body is being poisoned by the dye. Thousands of child slaves work India’s silk industry. Photographer Jodi Cobb and her assistant Neha Diddee saw the life they endure on the day they met Panneer. Later, after hours of shooting, Jodi and Neha walked back to their car, sit-down, and wept. The "21st century slaves" article in this issue may have the same effect on you as it had on Jodi, author Andrew Cockburn, and the rest of the team that prepared the story. You may cry. You may be sickened. You may be riveted, unable to stop reading, or you may decide you can't bear any more, and flip to the next article. As an editor, why would I decide to publish an article that makes people want to turn away, or that they may not want their children to see? Because until we began work on this story I had no idea there were 27 million slaves in the world all around us, largely invisible. I think you should know, and I think your children should know. Here is my promise: if you read the story that begins on page 2, you'll never look at the world the same way again". by-Andrew Cockburn, photographs by Jodi Cobb "The headline below is not a metaphor. This story is about slaves. Not people living like slaves, working hard for lousy pay. Not people 200 years old. It's about 27 million people worldwide who are bought and sold, held captive, brutalized, and exploited for profit. It's about 21st century slaves". In a dim, airless room in Northern India, a dozen children bend over gas burners making bracelets that sell for 40¢ a dozen. These children between 9-14 years old, work 10 hours a day, every day-traded by their parents to the workshop owner for cash. The average sum that enslaves an Indian child $35.00. "Unlike drugs, a woman's body can be sold over and over. Owners of Israeli brothels, like this one in Tel Aviv, can buy young women from Moldova or Ukraine for $4,000 each. With 10 prostitutes to service their customers, even a small operation can make a million dollars a year. Traffickers posing as employment agents find victims in poor Eastern European towns and lure them abroad with promises of good jobs. When the woman arrives-in Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, and the U.S.-they're delivered to buyers who typically beat, rape, or terrorize them into compliance". "Debt traps entire families in bondage for generations. Mothers and daughters haul handmade brick at a Southeast Indian kiln while fathers and sons stoke the fires, kiln owners acquire workers by loaning poor families money for expenses far beyond their means: medical care or a funeral. Despite years of work to pay back these loans, exorbitant interest and dishonest accounting perpetuate the debts, and parents pass the burdens on to their children. Roughly two-thirds of the world's captive laborers-15-20 million people are debt slaves in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal". Page 8 "Sher- wood Castle, headquarters to Milorad Milakovic, the former railroad official who rose to become a notorious slave trafficker in Bosnia, looms beside the main road just outside the Northwest Bosnian town of Prijedor. Under stucco battlements, the entrance is guarded by well muscled, heavily tattooed young man, while off to one side Milkovic's trio of pet Siberian tigers prowl their cage compound". Have mercy Lord to stop all human slavery.