Disposable People: Contemporary Global Slavery

Slavery is illegal throughout the world, yet more than twenty-seven million people are still trapped in one of history’s oldest social institutions. The underlying thread of the exhibition highlights how the unfortunate emergence of a new kind of slavery is inextricably linked to the ‘ascent’ of a global economy.

The compendium explores a range of examples, including child labour in Bangladesh, sex slavery from Ukraine to Western Europe and the sexual enslavement of South Korean women by Japanese troops during the Second World War. This disturbing narrative of contemporary slavery reaches from Pakistan’s brick kilns and Thailand’s brothels to various multinational corporations.

Photographers include: Abbas (Iran), Ian Berry (UK), Stuart Franklin (UK), Jim Goldberg (US), Susan Meiselas (US), Paolo Pellegrin (Italy), Chris Steele-Perkins (UK) and Alex Webb (US).

A Hayward Touring exhibition in collaboration with Autograph ABP and Magnum Photos