[jhulla]

Wonderful and deeply moving narrative.

Unfortunately through modern capitalism & the global supply chain we are all complicit in slavery.

The lowest cost of labor is zero or near zero. The challenge for miners/garment makers/manufacturers/industrial farms/etc. is to circumvent local laws & regulatory bodies while expanding their profit margins. Once past the local regulatory hurdle, the global supply chain adds successive layers of obfuscation and legitimacy until finished goods reach our homes. At that point, we can't tell anymore the amount of slave labor (or environmental externalities for that matter) that went into the product, so most people buy with little regard.

The solution is to strengthen regulatory bodies at all steps of the process worldwide with punitive damages to violators making the cost of circumventing labor laws greater than the benefit from exploiting poor/at-risk populations. This is an ongoing challenge for all governments worldwide - the difference is only of scale. Whether it is the plight of poultry workers in the midwest, slave fishermen in asia, trafficked women in Europe or indentured workers the world over, exploitation is an intertwined economic and moral problem.

As for Lola, I found it heartwarming that the author accompanied her home twice.