Slavery is on the ballot in November. No, I'm not kidding.

In less than 60 days, voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont will decide whether to abolish slavery. But it’s not exactly what you may think.

The initiative on the ballot is a part of a larger criminal justice reform movement aimed at prison labor. In an attempt address the “loophole” in the 13th Amendment—which ended slavery and involuntary servitude when it was ratified in 1865—advocates push to officially abolish slavery and involuntary servitude as well as reshape the prison labor system.

The liberal cultural elites, like those in the 1619 Project, are way behind the curve on this issue. They view the issue of slavery as something in the past that "white people' must pay for, which is the least helpful way of approaching the issue.
The reality is that it is an on-going crime and modern shame that needs to be stopped, and it appears that the public is doing something about it. Voters in Colorado, Nebraska and Utah overwhelmingly struck down slavery and involuntary servitude with ballot initiatives in 2018. California, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Texas are all considering legislation of their own.

However, domestic slavery isn't even the big problem. This might be the most depressing headline you will read this year.

Fifty million people around the world are trapped in modern slavery, either forced to work against their will or forced into a marriage, according to new global estimates, marking a significant rise over the past five years.

The number of people trapped in forced labour, including sex trafficking, rose to 28 million, with a further 22 million trapped in forced marriage, says a report published on Monday by the International Labour Organization, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the anti-trafficking human rights group Walk Free.

The new estimates found that 10 million more people had fallen victim to forms of modern slavery in 2021 compared with 2016, with women and children the most badly affected.

Most cases of forced labour – 86% – were found in the private sector in industries including manufacturing, construction, agriculture and domestic work. Millions of people, mainly women and girls, are also estimated to be trapped in commercial sexual exploitation. The other 14% of cases are state-sanctioned forced labour.

Here's the kicker - more than half of all forced labor happens in wealthier countries in the upper-middle or high-income bracket.
Back in the 1830s to the 1850s the British Navy took on slave traffickers off the coast of Africa. We need to incorporate an anti-slavery agenda into our foreign policy.