By: Shensi Ding

Making slavery illegal did not make it disappear. To many Americans, the idea of slavery is a distant and terrible part of history. At the height of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade, over six million people were forced into bound servitude. Thousands of Americans sacrificed their lives during the Civil War in order to bring about change in America. The Thirteenth Amendment led to the illegality of slavery, which was meant was meant to ban forced servitude in America forever. However, slavery remains among us in an even greater magnitude. There are more than 27 million slaves today – more than four times the number of slaves at the height of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Dan Gavin and the juniors in his Honors United States History class at Wayland High School are currently running a campaign in order to raise awareness about this modern day limitation of freedom. The class' campaign is called "Put a Red Light to Human Trafficking". The students' goal is to spread knowledge about how widespread human trafficking is – not only throughout the world, but especially in America. While discussing the topic of human trafficking in class, the students realized that they themselves did not know much about human trafficking in America. Many assumed that human trafficking only occured in foreign countries. They discovered through research that 14500-17500 people are lured into being transported to America and forced into slavery every year.

Currently, the students are working on having an Anti-Human Trafficking Week at the high school from June 1st to June 4th in order to raise awareness about modern-day slavery in America throughout the student body. They are working on bringing in speakers from Not For Sale, a group of modern-day abolitionists, holding a movie night, and hosting a barbeque for the high school on Wednesday, June 2nd. All the funds earned will be donated to Not For Sale. “I suggested the topic of human trafficking [for our campaign] because it is prevalent throughout the world, yet many people are unaware of its impact,” said Jamie Spagnuolo, a student in the history class, “Almost a quarter of a million people are enslaved in America alone. I think that it is important to inform people about this issue because so few people know about it. "