I know a lot of people, especially Americans, just can’t help but take a crap on America every chance they get, but we’re talking about a 15 year old crime, for which the perpetrators were held accountable versus an active slave trade in Saudi Arabia. Human trafficking in all forms is abhorrent but these are not the same IMHO.
I explicitly note that in my own country (NL) there are also many such cases, especially in the exploitation of women for the sex trade which is particularly lively here and a reason why plenty of women from Eastern countries are trafficked here, as well as the agricultural sector where people are grossly taken advantage of to labor under very bad circumstances often having to rent their bed for roughly what they make during a day of work.
I'm glad that you brought up agricultural indentured servitude. I live in the midwest US, and I feel that the migrant workers that we hear so many bad things about are just picking the individually optimal outcome, and if we wanted to see fundamental change we need to punish the companies that exploit these workers for rock bottom wages.
If you read the X-Dossiers (statements from victims and such in Dutroux case) you’ll find a lot of shocking things involving highly ranked people from Belgium, The Netherlands, etc...
I've heard of other recent cases of slavery, but unfortunately this was the only one I remembered enough details about to find a reference to. I'm guessing that for every case that's discovered and prosecuted, there are many others that are not (seems to be true of crimes in general).
And I certainly have no intention of crapping on America, which has provided me with many opportunities. But I think we should be aware that horrors like slavery can happen here too, not just in far-off countries.
