If you were making a list of global problems, slavery probably wouldn’t rank very highly. In fact, the word likely conjures up images of starving men in manacles working in Roman quarries or kidnapped Africans working in southern cotton plantations. They’re unpleasant images, but we’ve left that barbarism behind, right?

Kevin Bales and Becky Cornell, two experts on modern-day slavery, would disagree strongly. In fact, as they point out in Slavery Today, slavery is tragically alive in our modern world, with some 27 million people globally enslaved as factory workers, miners, farmers, and prostitutes. The book, part of Groundwood’s series of guides on current events topics, gives a crash course on slavery’s history and how it operates in our contemporary world.

It’s a lot of ground to cover, and the book’s short chapters should give young readers plenty to talk about. Bales and Cornell employ clear, jargon-free language that should pose no problem for a younger audience but doesn’t shy away from the seriousness and horror of modern-day slavery. The authors also include profiles of individual slaves – many the same age as the book’s intended readers – that humanize a global problem often overshadowed by other tragedies.

What the authors spell out clearly is just how slavery is linked to issues like war and economic growth. Areas in conflict – like Sudan – are focal points for slavery. Countries at the forefront of globalization, such as India and China, have problems with forced labour. Even Western countries have to face the spectre of human trafficking.

Slavery may be a shadow of its former self, but it does surface in the headlines. This book goes behind them and gives you the crucial story and context that’s missing.