International Journal of Arts and Humanities (IJAH)

This paper traces contemporary forms of slavery from their roots in the world of the Trans- Atlantic slave trade, and it also demonstrates how modern slavery differs from and yet tracks traditional forms of slavery. The paper further examines international instruments from the 1926 League of Nations Slave Convention through the Labor Conventions of the International Labor Organization (ILO) , the United Nations Human Rights Treaties and other international instruments for the prevention, suppression as well as the punishment of contemporary forms of slavery; in the formal tenets, Orlando Patterson, a leading expert, defines slavery as “the permanent, violent domination of natally alienated and generally dishonored persons.”i In the end, the paper concludes with brief assertions for how societies can improve the regime for the eradication of contemporary forms of enslavement, which scholars of the field – including Caribbean-born Orlando Patterson (1940--), Eric Williams (1911-1981); North American-born Paul Lovejoy (1943--); Africa’s Albert Adu Boahen (1932-2006) and J. F. Ade Ajayi (1929-2014) and other international experts – would have labelled as neo-slavery.