c. 2007 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Slavery is not dead, and neither is the campaign to kill it. A new generation of abolitionists hopes that a sweeping historical epic now in theaters will help boost their ranks.

The U.S. State Department estimates that 17,500 new slaves are brought to the United States every year. Worldwide, the number of people pressed into service and denied the freedom to walk away is probably at least 4 million, perhaps as many as 27 million, the agency says. The different numbers are the result of separate agencies doing the counting.

Slavery endures despite the fact that Great Britain abolished it two centuries ago, the United States fought the Civil War over it 140 years ago, and the United Nations prohibited it in 1948.

“Amazing Grace,” a feature film directed by Michael Apted, opened in theaters nationwide Friday (Feb. 23). It tells the story of William Wilberforce, a member of Parliament who argued passionately against slavery for decades. He was behind a bill that limited the slave trade in 1807 and saw the abolition of slavery in Great Britain a few days before his death in 1833.

Wilberforce’s story is relevant today, abolitionists say, because it reminds a modern audience of the inherent evils of slavery and of the ignorance and greed employed to defend it. It portrays the power of one unrelenting voice and the necessity of a committed, long-term network to keep attention on the problem and build a broad consensus against it.

The movie “Amazing Grace” has inspired The Amazing Change (http://www.theamazingchange.com), a global campaign that unites several abolitionist groups, including the International Justice Mission (http://www.ijm.org) and Free the Slaves (http://www.freetheslaves.net).

One of their biggest hurdles, abolitionists say, is overcoming the general notion that slavery no longer exists.

Modern-day slavery looks different from the plantation model most Americans think of when we hear the word. Today, children are pressed into the slave trade in the United States and abroad. Women are forced into domestic service not for wages _ or even for adequate room and board _ but in the hope that someday their owner will give them back their passports. Whole families work in mines, brick factories or gravel yards. Their dangerous toil creates profits, not for them, but for their owners.

“Two or three centuries ago we spoke of slavery in the United States and Europe as state-sanctioned property ownership of human beings. Slaves were chattel,” says David Batstone, an ethics professor at the University of San Francisco. He wrote “Not for Sale: The Return of the Global Slave Trade _ and How We Can Fight It” (HarperSanFrancisco, $14.95, 320 pages), published this month.

Today, slavery is different from an economic and social standpoint, he says. “People are forced into doing someone else’s labor and not compensated. If they try to escape, they are treated violently or their family is threatened.

“This kind of slavery is shorter term _ the slave owner doesn’t feel the same urgency to take care of his `property.’ People are disposable, like a battery. When their energy is used up, they can be thrown away.”

Batstone is behind a grass-roots campaign (http://www.notforsalecampaign.com) to find creative ways to spell the end of slavery. He encourages artists, athletes and others to help raise money that his organization channels to programs that shut down slave owners, retrain former slaves and lend them money to start their own businesses.

Batstone has reservations about simply buying slaves their freedom.

“All you’re doing then is creating a bigger market for slaves,” he says. He is excited about programs like one that makes small loans to fathers in Cambodia only if their daughters remain on the scene as co-signers.

“We want to lessen the likelihood that a father would sell his daughter into slavery,” he says.

Zach Hunter is a 15-year-old abolitionist from Atlanta who is a spokesman for The Amazing Change. He says he first heard of contemporary slavery when he was 12.

“My mom got a new job and I asked her what people did at the International Justice Mission,” he says in an interview. “She told me that they went around freeing slaves. I was shocked and surprised.

“But I didn’t think it was enough just to feel bad, or sad or angry.”

Hunter educated himself and hit the road, talking at schools and churches to about 400,000 people about the problem of “someone owning someone else.” He takes along a set of shackles to help him drive the point home. His book, “Be the Change: Your Guide to Freeing Slaves and Changing the World in Other Ways” (Zondervan, $9.99 paperback, 157 pages) will be published in March.

His own Be the Change campaign (http://www.youthspecialties.com/zachhunter) collects “loose change to lose chains,” he says. He promotes a petition sponsored by The Amazing Change that he says will be submitted to Congress. The campaign hopes to get 390,000 signatures, the same number Wilberforce presented in Parliament 200 years ago. As of Friday, more than 50,000 had signed it online at (http://www.theamazingchange.com).

“Just get educated,” Zach says. “Tell everyone you know about it. Lending your voice is not an unworthy thing to do.”

(Nancy Haught is a staff writer for The Oregonian of Portland, Ore.)

KRE/RB END HAUGHT Editors: To obtain photos of actor Youssou N’Dour playing a freed slave in `Amazing Grace’ and other photos from the film, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.

A version of this story is also being transmitted by Newhouse News Service.