0:00:00.723,0:00:07.123
I'm 150 feet down an illegal mine shaft in Ghana.

0:00:07.123,0:00:11.244
The air is thick with heat and dust,

0:00:11.244,0:00:14.653
and it's hard to breathe.

0:00:14.653,0:00:17.915
I can feel the brush of sweaty bodies passing me

0:00:17.915,0:00:22.161
in the darkness, but I can't see much else.

0:00:22.161,0:00:26.131
I hear voices talking, but mostly the shaft

0:00:26.131,0:00:30.119
is this cacophony of men coughing,

0:00:30.119,0:00:34.030
and stone being broken with primitive tools.

0:00:34.030,0:00:38.085
Like the others, I wear a flickering, cheap flashlight

0:00:38.085,0:00:42.881
tied to my head with this elastic, tattered band,

0:00:42.881,0:00:46.221
and I can barely make out the slick tree limbs

0:00:46.221,0:00:49.250
holding up the walls of the three-foot square hole

0:00:49.250,0:00:53.876
dropping hundreds of feet into the earth.

0:00:53.876,0:00:56.956
When my hand slips, I suddenly remember a miner

0:00:56.956,0:01:01.237
I had met days before who had lost his grip

0:01:01.237,0:01:05.858
and fell countless feet down that shaft.

0:01:05.858,0:01:08.389
As I stand talking to you today,

0:01:08.389,0:01:11.893
these men are still deep in that hole,

0:01:11.893,0:01:15.408
risking their lives without payment or compensation,

0:01:15.408,0:01:18.548
and often dying.

0:01:18.548,0:01:23.736
I got to climb out of that hole, and I got to go home,

0:01:23.736,0:01:29.918
but they likely never will, because they're trapped in slavery.

0:01:29.918,0:01:32.825
For the last 28 years, I've been documenting

0:01:32.825,0:01:35.386
indigenous cultures in more than 70 countries

0:01:35.386,0:01:39.181
on six continents, and in 2009 I had the great honor

0:01:39.181,0:01:43.593
of being the sole exhibitor at the Vancouver Peace Summit.

0:01:43.593,0:01:47.165
Amongst all the astonishing people I met there,

0:01:47.165,0:01:50.335
I met a supporter of Free the Slaves, an NGO

0:01:50.335,0:01:55.662
dedicated to eradicating modern day slavery.

0:01:55.662,0:01:58.551
We started talking about slavery, and really,

0:01:58.551,0:02:01.415
I started learning about slavery,

0:02:01.415,0:02:04.624
for I had certainly known it existed in the world,

0:02:04.624,0:02:07.635
but not to such a degree.

0:02:07.635,0:02:11.378
After we finished talking, I felt so horrible

0:02:11.378,0:02:14.754
and honestly ashamed at my own lack of knowledge

0:02:14.754,0:02:18.264
of this atrocity in my own lifetime, and I thought,

0:02:18.264,0:02:23.132
if I don't know, how many other people don't know?

0:02:23.132,0:02:26.947
It started burning a hole in my stomach, so within weeks,

0:02:26.947,0:02:29.923
I flew down to Los Angeles to meet with the director

0:02:29.923,0:02:33.194
of Free the Slaves and offer them my help.

0:02:33.194,0:02:37.764
Thus began my journey into modern day slavery.

0:02:37.764,0:02:40.906
Oddly, I had been to many of these places before.

0:02:40.906,0:02:44.387
Some I even considered like my second home.

0:02:44.387,0:02:51.822
But this time, I would see the skeletons hidden in the closet.

0:02:51.822,0:02:54.127
A conservative estimate tells us there are more than

0:02:54.127,0:02:58.282
27 million people enslaved in the world today.

0:02:58.282,0:03:01.762
That's double the amount of people taken from Africa

0:03:01.762,0:03:05.887
during the entire trans-Atlantic slave trade.

0:03:05.887,0:03:09.031
A hundred and fifty years ago, an agricultural slave

0:03:09.031,0:03:12.525
cost about three times the annual salary

0:03:12.525,0:03:15.271
of an American worker.

0:03:15.271,0:03:19.264
That equates to about $50,000 in today's money.

0:03:19.264,0:03:23.656
Yet today, entire families can be enslaved for generations

0:03:23.656,0:03:28.524
over a debt as small as $18.

0:03:28.524,0:03:31.556
Astonishingly, slavery generates profits

0:03:31.556,0:03:37.302
of more than $13 billion worldwide each year.

0:03:37.302,0:03:40.154
Many have been tricked by false promises

0:03:40.154,0:03:44.700
of a good education, a better job, only to find

0:03:44.700,0:03:48.208
that they're forced to work without pay

0:03:48.208,0:03:53.876
under the threat of violence, and they cannot walk away.

0:03:53.876,0:03:57.158
Today's slavery is about commerce,

0:03:57.158,0:04:01.188
so the goods that enslaved people produce have value,

0:04:01.188,0:04:06.186
but the people producing them are disposable.

0:04:06.186,0:04:10.576
Slavery exists everywhere, nearly, in the world,

0:04:10.576,0:04:17.543
and yet it is illegal everywhere in the world.

0:04:17.543,0:04:22.333
In India and Nepal, I was introduced to the brick kilns.

0:04:22.333,0:04:25.124
This strange and awesome sight was like

0:04:25.124,0:04:29.014
walking into ancient Egypt or Dante's Inferno.

0:04:29.014,0:04:33.165
Enveloped in temperatures of 130 degrees,

0:04:33.165,0:04:37.260
men, women, children, entire families in fact,

0:04:37.260,0:04:40.411
were cloaked in a heavy blanket of dust,

0:04:40.411,0:04:43.031
while mechanically stacking bricks on their head,

0:04:43.031,0:04:46.152
up to 18 at a time, and carrying them

0:04:46.152,0:04:51.102
from the scorching kilns to trucks hundreds of yards away.

0:04:51.102,0:04:54.629
Deadened by monotony and exhaustion,

0:04:54.629,0:05:00.214
they work silently, doing this task over and over

0:05:00.214,0:05:03.567
for 16 or 17 hours a day.

0:05:03.567,0:05:07.286
There were no breaks for food, no water breaks,

0:05:07.286,0:05:09.838
and the severe dehydration made urinating

0:05:09.838,0:05:12.710
pretty much inconsequential.

0:05:12.710,0:05:15.142
So pervasive was the heat and the dust

0:05:15.142,0:05:18.893
that my camera became too hot to even touch

0:05:18.893,0:05:21.345
and ceased working.

0:05:21.345,0:05:24.117
Every 20 minutes, I'd have to run back to our cruiser

0:05:24.117,0:05:27.466
to clean out my gear and run it under an air conditioner

0:05:27.466,0:05:30.521
to revive it, and as I sat there,

0:05:30.521,0:05:35.131
I thought, my camera is getting far better treatment

0:05:35.131,0:05:37.457
than these people.

0:05:37.457,0:05:40.329
Back in the kilns, I wanted to cry,

0:05:40.329,0:05:43.507
but the abolitionist next to me quickly grabbed me

0:05:43.507,0:05:47.811
and he said, "Lisa, don't do that. Just don't do that here."

0:05:47.811,0:05:51.704
And he very clearly explained to me that emotional displays

0:05:51.704,0:05:54.238
are very dangerous in a place like this,

0:05:54.238,0:05:58.092
not just for me, but for them.

0:05:58.092,0:06:01.742
I couldn't offer them any direct help.

0:06:01.742,0:06:04.535
I couldn't give them money, nothing.

0:06:04.535,0:06:06.332
I wasn't a citizen of that country.

0:06:06.332,0:06:09.420
I could get them in a worse situation

0:06:09.420,0:06:12.200
than they were already in.

0:06:12.200,0:06:14.456
I'd have to rely on Free the Slaves to work

0:06:14.456,0:06:17.298
within the system for their liberation,

0:06:17.298,0:06:20.767
and I trusted that they would.

0:06:20.767,0:06:24.204
As for me, I'd have to wait until I got home

0:06:24.204,0:06:28.166
to really feel my heartbreak.

0:06:28.166,0:06:31.039
In the Himalayas, I found children carrying stone

0:06:31.039,0:06:33.789
for miles down mountainous terrain

0:06:33.789,0:06:36.687
to trucks waiting at roads below.

0:06:36.687,0:06:39.205
The big sheets of slate were heavier

0:06:39.205,0:06:41.871
than the children carrying them,

0:06:41.871,0:06:43.900
and the kids hoisted them from their heads

0:06:43.900,0:06:48.344
using these handmade harnesses of sticks and rope

0:06:48.344,0:06:50.191
and torn cloth.

0:06:50.191,0:06:53.866
It's difficult to witness something so overwhelming.

0:06:53.866,0:06:56.513
How can we affect something so insidious,

0:06:56.513,0:06:59.725
yet so pervasive?

0:06:59.725,0:07:02.437
Some don't even know they're enslaved,

0:07:02.437,0:07:07.443
people working 16, 17 hours a day without any pay,

0:07:07.443,0:07:10.656
because this has been the case all their lives.

0:07:10.656,0:07:14.938
They have nothing to compare it to.

0:07:14.938,0:07:18.312
When these villagers claimed their freedom,

0:07:18.312,0:07:23.727
the slaveholders burned down all of their houses.

0:07:23.727,0:07:25.689
I mean, these people had nothing,

0:07:25.689,0:07:29.338
and they were so petrified, they wanted to give up,

0:07:29.338,0:07:33.385
but the woman in the center rallied for them to persevere,

0:07:33.385,0:07:34.881
and abolitionists on the ground

0:07:34.881,0:07:37.540
helped them get a quarry lease of their own,

0:07:37.540,0:07:40.653
so that now they do the same back-breaking work,

0:07:40.653,0:07:45.160
but they do it for themselves, and they get paid for it,

0:07:45.160,0:07:48.583
and they do it in freedom.

0:07:48.583,0:07:50.651
Sex trafficking is what we often think of

0:07:50.651,0:07:52.552
when we hear the word slavery,

0:07:52.552,0:07:54.511
and because of this worldwide awareness,

0:07:54.511,0:07:57.647
I was warned that it would be difficult for me to work safely

0:07:57.647,0:08:00.469
within this particular industry.

0:08:00.469,0:08:03.311
In Kathmandu, I was escorted by women who had

0:08:03.311,0:08:06.847
previously been sex slaves themselves.

0:08:06.847,0:08:09.205
They ushered me down a narrow set of stairs

0:08:09.205,0:08:14.818
that led to this dirty, dimly fluorescent lit basement.

0:08:14.818,0:08:16.650
This wasn't a brothel, per se.

0:08:16.650,0:08:18.961
It was more like a restaurant.

0:08:18.961,0:08:21.221
Cabin restaurants, as they're known in the trade,

0:08:21.221,0:08:23.843
are venues for forced prostitution.

0:08:23.843,0:08:26.875
Each has small, private rooms, where the slaves,

0:08:26.875,0:08:29.506
women, along with young girls and boys,

0:08:29.506,0:08:32.285
some as young as seven years old,

0:08:32.285,0:08:34.275
are forced to entertain the clients,

0:08:34.275,0:08:38.055
encouraging them to buy more food and alcohol.

0:08:38.055,0:08:41.094
Each cubicle is dark and dingy,

0:08:41.094,0:08:45.033
identified with a painted number on the wall,

0:08:45.033,0:08:49.138
and partitioned by plywood and a curtain.

0:08:49.138,0:08:52.689
The workers here often endure tragic sexual abuse

0:08:52.689,0:08:55.271
at the hands of their customers.

0:08:55.271,0:08:58.337
Standing in the near darkness, I remember feeling

0:08:58.337,0:09:02.423
this quick, hot fear, and in that instant,

0:09:02.423,0:09:04.768
I could only imagine what it must be like

0:09:04.768,0:09:07.431
to be trapped in that hell.

0:09:07.431,0:09:12.033
I had only one way out: the stairs from where I'd come in.

0:09:12.033,0:09:13.889
There were no back doors.

0:09:13.889,0:09:16.432
There were no windows large enough to climb through.

0:09:16.432,0:09:20.692
These people have no escape at all,

0:09:20.692,0:09:23.752
and as we take in such a difficult subject,

0:09:23.752,0:09:28.363
it's important to note that slavery, including sex trafficking,

0:09:28.363,0:09:31.292
occurs in our own backyard as well.

0:09:31.292,0:09:35.916
Tens of hundreds of people are enslaved in agriculture,

0:09:35.916,0:09:38.588
in restaurants, in domestic servitude,

0:09:38.588,0:09:41.220
and the list can go on.

0:09:41.220,0:09:43.859
Recently, the New York Times reported that

0:09:43.859,0:09:49.665
between 100,000 and 300,000 American children

0:09:49.665,0:09:53.626
are sold into sex slavery every year.

0:09:53.626,0:10:00.169
It's all around us. We just don't see it.

0:10:00.169,0:10:03.551
The textile industry is another one we often think of

0:10:03.551,0:10:06.437
when we hear about slave labor.

0:10:06.437,0:10:10.760
I visited villages in India where entire families were enslaved

0:10:10.760,0:10:13.405
in the silk trade.

0:10:13.405,0:10:15.697
This is a family portrait.

0:10:15.697,0:10:19.585
The dyed black hands are the father, while the blue

0:10:19.585,0:10:22.374
and red hands are his sons.

0:10:22.374,0:10:25.098
They mix dye in these big barrels,

0:10:25.098,0:10:29.063
and they submerge the silk into the liquid up to their elbows,

0:10:29.063,0:10:34.025
but the dye is toxic.

0:10:34.025,0:10:37.330
My interpreter told me their stories.

0:10:37.330,0:10:40.932
"We have no freedom," they said.

0:10:40.932,0:10:44.036
"We hope still, though, that we could leave this house

0:10:44.036,0:10:45.690
someday and go someplace else

0:10:45.690,0:10:52.354
where we actually get paid for our dyeing."

0:10:52.354,0:10:57.293
It's estimated that more than 4,000 children

0:10:57.293,0:10:59.450
are enslaved on Lake Volta,

0:10:59.450,0:11:03.536
the largest man-made lake in the world.

0:11:03.536,0:11:06.510
When we first arrived, I went to have a quick look.

0:11:06.510,0:11:09.878
I saw what seemed to be a family fishing on a boat,

0:11:09.878,0:11:14.043
two older brothers, some younger kids, makes sense right?

0:11:14.043,0:11:18.091
Wrong. They were all enslaved.

0:11:18.091,0:11:20.920
Children are taken from their families

0:11:20.920,0:11:23.427
and trafficked and vanished,

0:11:23.427,0:11:26.339
and they're forced to work endless hours on these boats

0:11:26.339,0:11:30.886
on the lake, even though they do not know how to swim.

0:11:30.886,0:11:33.221
This young child is eight years old.

0:11:33.221,0:11:35.877
He was trembling when our boat approached,

0:11:35.877,0:11:38.532
frightened it would run over his tiny canoe.

0:11:38.532,0:11:41.871
He was petrified he would be knocked in the water.

0:11:41.871,0:11:45.156
The skeletal tree limbs submerged in Lake Volta

0:11:45.156,0:11:49.121
often catch the fishing nets, and weary,

0:11:49.121,0:11:52.854
frightened children are thrown into the water

0:11:52.854,0:11:55.005
to untether the lines.

0:11:55.005,0:11:57.852
Many of them drown.

0:11:57.852,0:12:01.192
For as long as he can recall, he's been forced to work

0:12:01.192,0:12:03.365
on the lake.

0:12:03.365,0:12:06.829
Terrified of his master, he will not run away,

0:12:06.829,0:12:10.317
and since he's been treated with cruelty all his life,

0:12:10.317,0:12:12.749
he passes that down to the younger slaves

0:12:12.749,0:12:15.754
that he manages.

0:12:15.754,0:12:17.858
I met these boys at five in the morning,

0:12:17.858,0:12:20.319
when they were hauling in the last of their nets,

0:12:20.319,0:12:23.180
but they had been working since 1 a.m.

0:12:23.180,0:12:26.755
in the cold, windy night.

0:12:26.755,0:12:30.021
And it's important to note that these nets weigh

0:12:30.021,0:12:34.437
more than a thousand pounds when they're full of fish.

0:12:34.437,0:12:38.940
I want to introduce you to Kofi.

0:12:38.940,0:12:42.186
Kofi was rescued from a fishing village.

0:12:42.186,0:12:44.778
I met him at a shelter where Free the Slaves

0:12:44.778,0:12:48.707
rehabilitates victims of slavery.

0:12:48.707,0:12:50.788
Here he's seen taking a bath at the well,

0:12:50.788,0:12:53.691
pouring big buckets of water over his head,

0:12:53.691,0:12:55.612
and the wonderful news is,

0:12:55.612,0:12:57.610
as you and I are sitting here talking today,

0:12:57.610,0:13:00.845
Kofi has been reunited with his family,

0:13:00.845,0:13:03.997
and what's even better, his family has been given tools

0:13:03.997,0:13:09.724
to make a living and to keep their children safe.

0:13:09.724,0:13:14.177
Kofi is the embodiment of possibility.

0:13:14.177,0:13:18.748
Who will he become because someone took a stand

0:13:18.748,0:13:22.340
and made a difference in his life?

0:13:22.340,0:13:24.568
Driving down a road in Ghana

0:13:24.568,0:13:26.656
with partners of Free the Slaves,

0:13:26.656,0:13:29.698
a fellow abolitionist on a moped suddenly sped up

0:13:29.698,0:13:32.645
to our cruiser and tapped on the window.

0:13:32.645,0:13:37.425
He told us to follow him down a dirt road into the jungle.

0:13:37.425,0:13:40.214
At the end of the road, he urged us out of the car,

0:13:40.214,0:13:42.893
and told the driver to quickly leave.

0:13:42.893,0:13:46.238
Then he pointed toward this barely visible footpath,

0:13:46.238,0:13:50.135
and said, "This is the path, this is the path. Go."

0:13:50.135,0:13:53.804
As we started down the path, we pushed aside the vines

0:13:53.804,0:13:57.604
blocking the way, and after about an hour of walking in,

0:13:57.604,0:14:03.130
found that the trail had become flooded by recent rains,

0:14:03.130,0:14:04.946
so I hoisted the photo gear above my head

0:14:04.946,0:14:09.532
as we descended into these waters up to my chest.

0:14:09.532,0:14:13.317
After another two hours of hiking, the winding trail

0:14:13.317,0:14:17.613
abruptly ended at a clearing, and before us

0:14:17.613,0:14:19.629
was a mass of holes

0:14:19.629,0:14:23.449
that could fit into the size of a football field,

0:14:23.449,0:14:29.043
and all of them were full of enslaved people laboring.

0:14:29.043,0:14:32.188
Many women had children strapped to their backs

0:14:32.188,0:14:34.228
while they were panning for gold,

0:14:34.228,0:14:38.531
wading in water poisoned by mercury.

0:14:38.531,0:14:43.409
Mercury is used in the extraction process.

0:14:43.409,0:14:46.565
These miners are enslaved in a mine shaft

0:14:46.565,0:14:49.639
in another part of Ghana.

0:14:49.639,0:14:52.460
When they came out of the shaft, they were soaking wet

0:14:52.460,0:14:54.738
from their own sweat.

0:14:54.738,0:14:58.741
I remember looking into their tired, bloodshot eyes,

0:14:58.741,0:15:04.482
for many of them had been underground for 72 hours.

0:15:04.482,0:15:08.457
The shafts are up to 300 feet deep, and they carry out

0:15:08.457,0:15:12.026
heavy bags of stone that later will be transported

0:15:12.026,0:15:14.627
to another area, where the stone will be pounded

0:15:14.627,0:15:18.572
so that they can extract the gold.

0:15:18.572,0:15:22.677
At first glance, the pounding site seems full

0:15:22.677,0:15:27.570
of powerful men, but when we look closer,

0:15:27.570,0:15:32.437
we see some less fortunate working on the fringes,

0:15:32.437,0:15:34.580
and children too.

0:15:34.580,0:15:41.722
All of them are victim to injury, illness and violence.

0:15:41.722,0:15:45.702
In fact, it's very likely that this muscular person

0:15:45.702,0:15:50.237
will end up like this one here, racked with tuberculosis

0:15:50.237,0:15:55.208
and mercury poisoning in just a few years.

0:15:55.208,0:15:59.485
This is Manuru. When his father died,

0:15:59.485,0:16:02.567
his uncle trafficked him to work with him in the mines.

0:16:02.567,0:16:07.163
When his uncle died, Manuru inherited his uncle's debt,

0:16:07.163,0:16:12.105
which further forced him into being enslaved in the mines.

0:16:12.105,0:16:14.938
When I met him, he had been working in the mines

0:16:14.938,0:16:19.731
for 14 years, and the leg injury that you see here

0:16:19.731,0:16:21.744
is actually from a mining accident,

0:16:21.744,0:16:26.861
one so severe doctors say his leg should be amputated.

0:16:26.877,0:16:30.827
On top of that, Manuru has tuberculosis,

0:16:30.827,0:16:33.871
yet he's still forced to work day in and day out

0:16:33.871,0:16:36.115
in that mine shaft.

0:16:36.115,0:16:41.278
Even still, he has a dream that he will become free

0:16:41.278,0:16:44.391
and become educated with the help of local activists

0:16:44.391,0:16:46.819
like Free the Slaves,

0:16:46.819,0:16:49.171
and it's this sort of determination,

0:16:49.171,0:16:53.049
in the face of unimaginable odds,

0:16:53.049,0:17:00.409
that fills me with complete awe.

0:17:00.409,0:17:03.709
I want to shine a light on slavery.

0:17:03.709,0:17:05.964
When I was working in the field,

0:17:05.964,0:17:08.645
I brought lots of candles with me,

0:17:08.645,0:17:11.367
and with the help of my interpreter,

0:17:11.367,0:17:13.683
I imparted to the people I was photographing

0:17:13.683,0:17:16.794
that I wanted to illuminate their stories

0:17:16.794,0:17:18.861
and their plight,

0:17:18.861,0:17:22.366
so when it was safe for them, and safe for me,

0:17:22.366,0:17:25.707
I made these images.

0:17:25.707,0:17:27.940
They knew their image would be seen

0:17:27.940,0:17:29.769
by you out in the world.

0:17:29.769,0:17:33.513
I wanted them to know that we will be bearing witness

0:17:33.513,0:17:37.442
to them, and that we will do whatever we can

0:17:37.442,0:17:42.132
to help make a difference in their lives.

0:17:42.132,0:17:45.612
I truly believe, if we can see one another

0:17:45.612,0:17:50.096
as fellow human beings, then it becomes very difficult

0:17:50.096,0:17:55.300
to tolerate atrocities like slavery.

0:17:55.300,0:17:58.984
These images are not of issues. They are of people,

0:17:58.984,0:18:02.249
real people, like you and me, all deserving

0:18:02.249,0:18:05.729
of the same rights, dignity and respect

0:18:05.729,0:18:07.958
in their lives.

0:18:07.958,0:18:11.193
There is not a day that goes by that I don't think

0:18:11.193,0:18:16.472
of these many beautiful, mistreated people

0:18:16.472,0:18:21.041
I've had the tremendous honor of meeting.

0:18:21.041,0:18:24.571
I hope that these images awaken a force

0:18:24.571,0:18:27.617
in those who view them, people like you,

0:18:27.617,0:18:31.893
and I hope that force will ignite a fire,

0:18:31.893,0:18:36.816
and that fire will shine a light on slavery,

0:18:36.816,0:18:40.825
for without that light, the beast of bondage

0:18:40.825,0:18:44.009
can continue to live in the shadows.

0:18:44.009,0:18:46.986
Thank you very much.

0:18:46.986,0:19:00.239
(Applause)