Social Organizations

Slavery refers to a situation in which the victims are normally induced into some form of slave like exploitation though coercion, force or fraud. In my own point of view, I do agree with Leuchtag’s views on the issue of slavery by calling for stronger laws in stamping out or cracking out this vice. This is because besides prostitution, slave trade is responsible for other various evils that exist in the society and thus making human trafficking to be a very serious problem in the society. The prescribed solution should not however be on prostitution alone as suggested by Leuchtag but on slavery as well. It is also agreeable with me that the regulation and legalization of prostitution should never be a viable answer. However, her argument falsifies herself if the abuses alleged under regulation are real and the regulation is not real at all.

In America, it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of people living in slavery and who are forced to work against their wish under threats or violence and get paid nothing. Slavery does not only exist in the United States but across the whole world. Slavery, as a problem has been staggering and it is estimated that approximately 27 million individuals are held as modern day slaves. Even though slavery is not legalized everywhere, it has still continued to exist in various places around the globe. Modern slavery includes among others forced sexual labor, child labour, human trafficking, migrant labor and bonded labor in which those enslaved are held under un-payable and debts that never end. According to Kevin Bales, the author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy and co-founder of Free Slaves, slaves are cheaper in modern slavery than at any time in the history of humans and that currently, the cost of a slave costs averagely $90 as compared to 1860 when one was sold at $ 40,000 (Choi-Fitzpatrick,  2008).

One of the functionalist perspectives that can be used in explaining the issue is the functionalist perspective, also known as Functionalism. In this perspective, each and every aspect of the society in Salvado is independent and contributes to the functioning of the society as whole. The parts of society, if all goes well, must produce stability, order and productivity or adapt to recapture them the society, through the functionalism perspective is held together through social consensus and consensus whereby members of the community agree to work together in achieving the best for the society as a whole. Social consensus takes two forms, thus organic solidarity and mechanical solidarity.

Indeed, there exist great differences among victims of slavery by ethnicity, race, age and gender. This is because slavery is known to cut across race, nationality, class, gender educational level and other demographic characteristics (Bickerstaff, 2009).