2010 Frederick Douglass Book Prize: acknowledging modern-day slavery

The recipient of the this year’s 2010 Frederick Douglass Book Prize for the best non-fiction book on slavery was Siddharth Kara, author of Sex Trafficking: Inside the Business of Modern Slavery. This is the first book on contemporary slavery to ever win this award — a significant step forward in the fight against human trafficking.

Kara was an investigative reporter that posed as a customer across Asia, Europe, and the United States. He encountered victims of trafficking, speaking confidentially with them to gain insight into their lives and stories. The book not only details the issue but also gives Kara’s perspective on how to bring change. Most importantly, the book acknowledges that slavery is not just a thing of the past but is very much a modern-day injustice.

According to Columbia Univeristy Press’ blog, Martha Hodes — the 2010 Douglass Prize Jury Chain and a Professor of History at New York University — stated:

[Sex Trafficking] carefully and compassionately convinces us to understand the phenomenon of modern-day human sex trafficking as part of the history of slavery and abolition. For his research, Kara posed as a customer across Asia, Europe, and the United States, entangling himself with perpetrators and speaking confidentially with victims. Sidestepping sensationalism and absent any delusion of casting himself as a rescuer, Kara relates wrenching stories in lucid prose, thereby shedding a strong and steady beam of light on a widespread and ongoing global crime. With an exemplary mixture of courage and humility, the author combines a gripping first-person narrative with trenchant economic analysis and clear-eyed proposals for change. In the end, this book prevents us from consigning slavery to the past.

The Frederick Douglass Book Prize was established in 1999 to stimulate scholarship in the field of slavery and abolition by honoring outstanding books.