The role of narratives in unmasking modern slavery

I have come to realise that there are moments in life when literature ceases to be a distant intellectual exercise and becomes painfully real. Not long ago, I was confronted with such a moment when my own niece, Catherine, returned home after two years of working in Qatar.

She came back a broken girl. She was physically present but emotionally shattered. The vibrant young woman we had known had been reduced to a shadow of herself. Her story is not an isolated one; it is part of a growing archive of modern-day slave narratives — a new sub-genre yet to be fully explored.

Catherine was a victim of what is deceptively packaged as kazi majuu, the promise of greener pastures abroad. Beneath this alluring phrase lies a harsh and brutal reality. In foreign lands, many of our young people, especially girls, find themselves trapped in conditions that mirror slavery in all but name.

Catherine’s experience was chilling. She had to do “everything” within her power to survive and eventually find her way back home. I will not elaborate on that “everything” here. When I documented her story and shared it on my YouTube channel, it became one of the most viewed videos. Clearly, her pain echoed the untold stories of countless others.

Ironically, long before Catherine’s ordeal, I had explored the theme of slavery in a novella titled The Slave Child. In it, I traced the life of a Ugandan boy captured and shipped to Arabia. I wrote this story while working as a lecturer in Rwanda in the early years of this century. It was inspired by reports of child abductions in northern Uganda. At the time, I believed I was engaging with history and fiction, drawing from the past to illuminate human suffering. I did not imagine that, years later, similar narratives would unfold within my own family.

This week, my reflections on slave narratives deepened when a friend gifted me a tattered volume containing some of the most powerful 19th-century accounts: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, The History of Mary Prince, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. I first encountered these texts as a student of African American literature at Kenyatta University in the 1980s. Reading them again was like reopening old wounds.

Equiano’s narrative recounts the terror of capture, the horror of the Middle Passage, and the struggle to reclaim humanity in a world that denied it. Mary Prince’s story exposes the brutality inflicted on enslaved women; the physical abuse, the sexual exploitation, and the relentless dehumanisation.

Frederick Douglass presents a powerful journey from bondage to intellectual and physical freedom, highlighting literacy as a tool of liberation. Harriet Jacobs, in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, reveals the gendered dimensions of slavery, where survival often demanded unimaginable sacrifices, an experience not unlike that of my niece, Catherine.

These narratives are marked by both trauma and resilience; they are, above all, fierce assertions of humanity. Written in defiance of systems that sought to erase identity and dignity, they remain enduring testimonies of resistance. Yet, as I reflected on these 19th-century accounts, I could not ignore the unsettling parallels with contemporary experiences.

There are, of course, differences between historical slavery and modern-day forms of exploitation. One of the most striking is that today’s slavery often appears voluntary. Our young people willingly board planes and boats in search of better opportunities. Some risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean Sea. They are all driven by desperation and the hope of a better future. But can we truly call it voluntary when the alternatives at home are unemployment and poverty? No.

Our leaders have embraced kazi majuu as a policy direction. They celebrate the export of labour as a sign of progress. What a joke! In doing so, they inadvertently facilitate a system that exposes our citizens to exploitation and abuse. We are, in effect, sending our children into conditions that resemble slavery. Let us not cloak this reality in the language of opportunity. The result is a new genre of modern slave narratives, deeply unsettling in their implications.

Unlike their 19th-century counterparts, which often carried a sense of hope and eventual liberation, many of today’s stories are marked by despair and unresolved pain. They are narratives of survival rather than triumph. Let us face it, folks: Slavery has not disappeared; it has merely transformed. It is now driven by economic desperation, a stark irony of our time. We live in an age that celebrates freedom and human rights, yet we continue to produce slave narratives. Who cursed us?

We must expand our understanding of slave narratives in the literature classroom. Too often, we confine these texts to the 18th and 19th centuries, treating them as historical artefacts. But slavery is not merely a relic of the past; it is a contemporary reality. Our classrooms must reflect this truth by incorporating modern-day slave narratives into the curriculum. This will enrich literary discourse and foster critical awareness among our students.

There is another irony we cannot ignore. While parts of the world explore outer space and push the boundaries of human achievement, we are still grappling with the most basic question of human dignity. As others look to the stars, we continue to send our young people into situations that strip them of their humanity. Is this their fate? I refuse to believe so.

As I reflect on Catherine’s story alongside the slave narratives of the 18th and 19th centuries, it is clear that this is an evolving genre. Slavery persists among us, in new forms and under new names. These narratives demand a national conversation. Let us move beyond empty rhetoric and confront this reality with the seriousness it deserves.