Children's Wisdom About Slavery and Freedom

by Amanda Kloer · 2010-09-04 10:00:00 +0100
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Children can be unintentionally smart and incredibly profound, including while talking about heavy topics like slavery and freedom. Free the Slaves asked several children at the Agape International Spiritual Center their thoughts on slavery and freedom. Their answers might just surprise you. Their adorableness won't.

We often think human trafficking and modern-day slavery are topics that are too challenging or too complex for children. As adults, we struggle with conceptualizing and understanding these issues. Modern-day slavery as an issue is all at once historical, political, moral, economic, and social. When we discuss it, we often end up having loaded and controversial conversations about race, sex, gender, equality, poverty, globalization, violence, and other forces which surround human trafficking. That makes it all the more refreshing when kids can step in and remind us what slavery and freedom are really about, and why fighting for freedom around the world is so important.

Check out some children's wisdom about slavery and freedom.

When we get bogged down in the politics of fighting human trafficking, it is not just helpful but therapeutic to remember that slavery really is about people thinking they have the right to use and sell other people, and freedom means no one owns you. And of course, that when people get out of slavery, they will have the best day of their lives. Working toward that first day of freedom after anywhere from one hour to 50 years of bondage is what the abolitionist movement should be all about. It's what we adults too often lose sight of and struggle to get back. And it's what a wise child knows intuitively, and never has to remind herself of.

Photo/Video Credit: Free the Slaves

Amanda Kloer is a Change.org Editor and has been a full-time abolitionist in several capacities for seven years. Follow her on Twitter @endhumantraffic
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