Leroy Fearon | From chains to systems: Slavery’s modern mutations

March 25 is not merely a date on the United Nations calendar. It is a moral checkpoint; a moment that compels us to confront one of humanity’s most brutal enterprises: the transatlantic slave trade.

For over four centuries, millions of Africans were violently uprooted, commodified, and subjected to a system that reduced human beings to property. While we rightly honour their suffering and resilience, remembrance alone is insufficient if it is confined to the past.

The uncomfortable truth is this: slavery did not simply end, it evolved. The architecture of the transatlantic slave system was not only physical; it was economic, psychological, and institutional. It established a global order premised on extraction, racial hierarchy, and disposability of certain bodies. That architecture, though rebranded and refined, continues to manifest in modern systems that shape our world today.

Consider labour. While chattel slavery has been abolished, exploitative labour practices persist across global supply chains. From underpaid factory workers in developing nations to migrant labourers with limited rights, the logic is hauntingly familiar: maximise profit by minimising the value of human life.

Workers are not owned in the legal sense, but many are trapped in cycles of economic dependency that offer little real freedom. The question we must ask is not whether slavery exists in its original form, but whether its underlying principles have been sufficiently dismantled.

Closer to home, in Jamaica and across the Caribbean, the legacy of slavery is etched into the economic landscape. Plantation economies have given way to service-based industries, yet structural inequalities remain deeply entrenched. Wealth distribution, land ownership, and access to opportunity still reflect historical imbalances. Communities descended from the enslaved continue to navigate systems that were never designed with their liberation in mind. In this context, March 25 must also be a day of interrogation: how far have we truly come, and who continues to bear the burden of that history?

Globally, we see further mutations of this legacy in systems of mass incarceration and human trafficking. In some societies, prison systems disproportionately target and confine marginalised populations, effectively creating a pipeline of cheap or unpaid labour. Meanwhile, human trafficking, modern-day slavery in its most explicit form, continues to exploit millions, particularly women and children. These realities are not historical footnotes; they are present-day crises that demand urgent attention.

THE STRUGGLE FOR HUMAN DIGNITY DID NOT END IN THE 19TH CENTURY

What connects these phenomena is not coincidence, but continuity. The transatlantic slave trade normalised a worldview in which certain lives were expendable for economic gain. That worldview did not vanish with abolition, it adapted. It embedded itself in policies, practices, and perceptions that continue to shape who is valued and who is vulnerable.

This is why the International Day of Remembrance must resist the temptation of comfortable nostalgia. It is easy to confine slavery to ships, chains, and plantations; images that, while powerful, risk distancing us from the present. A more honest remembrance requires us to draw a direct line from then to now, to recognize that the struggle for human dignity did not end in the 19th century.

For educators, this presents a profound responsibility. The classroom must move beyond recounting historical facts to fostering critical consciousness. Students must be equipped not only to understand what slavery was, but to identify its echoes in contemporary society. This is how remembrance becomes resistance, when knowledge empowers action.

For policymakers and leaders, the implications are equally significant. Addressing the modern mutations of slavery requires more than symbolic gestures. It demands structural change: fair labour laws, equitable economic policies, robust protections against human trafficking, and a sustained commitment to dismantling systemic inequality. Anything less risks reducing March 25 to an annual ritual devoid of transformative impact.

And for all of us, as citizens of a global community, the call is clear. We must refuse to inherit the past passively. To remember is not simply to look back; it is to take responsibility for what we see around us today.

The chains may no longer be visible, but the systems they forged remain. If March 25 is to hold true significance, it must challenge us to do more than remember. It must compel us to recognise, to question, and ultimately, to act. Because history is not only what happened, it is what we allow to continue.

- Leroy Fearon Jr, J.P, M.Sc., is a lecturer, multi-disciplinary researcher, author, geography specialist, columnist, Governor General's Achievement Awardee '24 and Governor General I Believe Initiative (IBI) Ambassador '24. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and leroyfearon85@gmail.com