Jean-Robert Cadet was a child slave for the first fourteen years of his life

Jean-Robert Cadet now teaches at an American University but, for the first fourteen years of his life, was a ‘restavec’ – a child given away by his own parents to work as an unpaid domestic servant for a wealthy family.

There are an estimated 173,000 restavec children in Haiti, who receive little or no education and often experience physical or sexual abuse by their masters.

12.3 million people worldwide today are trapped in forced labour, according to a new report by the International Labour Organisation entitled ‘A Global Alliance Against Forced Labour’.

This is thought to be greater than the total number of people transported in the Atlantic Slave Trade of the 15th to 19th century.

Forced Labour in figures 12.3m forced labourers worldwide 40-50% of all victims are under 18 years of age 20% of all forced labour is the outcome of trafficking $32bn annual profit made by human traffickers 75% of developed world victims are trafficked for the sex trade ILO

How the world should deal with the problem will be discussed at MIT on Saturday 14 May.

In the morning sessions, key players including Jean-Robert Cadet, leading trade theorist Professor Jagdish Bhagwati, activist Kevin Bales, ILO expert Roger Plant and Steven Law, the US Deputy Secretary for Labour, will debate the issues before a live audience.

In the afternoon, round table discussions will take place involving academics, policy makers, journalists and individuals who lead in this field.

These are complex issues that challenge our perception of what constitutes slavery and forced labour in the modern world, as many of these victims of the ‘new’ forms of forced labour have voluntarily left their home countries in search of a better life in the West.

The programmes will be broadcast on the BBC and Public Radio and Television in the States.

The World Debate: On Slavery

BBC World will be recording an edition of The World Debate presented by Zeinab Badawi.

Panellists will discuss the findings of the ILO report

From left to right:

• Zeinab Badawi - presenter
• Kevin Bales - president of Free the Slaves, the U.S. sister organization of Anti-Slavery International; author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy (1999)
• Jagdish Bhagwati - leading international trade theorist and professor at Columbia University.
• Jean-Robert Cadet - adjunct instructor in French at the University of Cincinnati's Raymond Walters College, author, activist and former restavec, a child domestic slave.
• Steven Law - Deputy Secretary, U.S. Department of Labor.

BBC World will air The World Debate on 21 and 22 May, 2005. Further details are at:

The programme will be distributed in the United States to public television stations by WLIW New York, and will air in the New York metropolitan area on WLIW21 Sunday, May 22 at 3.30pm (check local listings for airdates and times in other cities).

WBUR’s "On Point"

WBUR, operated by the University of Boston, is one of the USA’s leading public radio stations.

On Point, hosted by former Boston Globe deputy managing editor Tom Ashbrook, produced at WBUR and distributed by NPR, is public radio’s live evening news program.

On Saturday 14 May, WBUR will be recording an edition of On Point at MIT for broadcast the following week. Guests include:

• Terry Collingsworth, the Executive Director, International Labor Rights Fund
• Regina Abrami, Hellman Faculty Fellow, Harvard Business School
• Roger Plant, Head of the International Labour Organization Program to Combat Forced Labor and author of the ILO’s Global Report on Forced Labour

BBC World Service "Slavery Today"

BBC World Service will be at the event recording a follow-up interview and discussion programme to their acclaimed radio documentary series Slavery Today, which was first broadcast in November 2004. It will be presented by Gerry Northam.

Further details are at: