Systems thinking applied to slavery

Abstract

This study utilizes soft system dynamics methodology to analyze modern-day slavery in order to increase understanding and communicate the complexities of slavery. The authors collaborated with Free The Slaves (FTS), a Washington D.C.-based nongovernmental organization, in order to gain feedback throughout the modeling process. FTS activists conduct frontline work and have an expertise in understanding how people become susceptible to slavery, victims of slavery, how they are freed, and how they can become slave-proof or highly unlikely to be susceptible to slavery. The authors are currently creating a base macro model of the variables that affect how a community first becomes susceptible to slavery, which will theoretically represent any community in the world. This model will then be tested using assessment data collected by FTS on the North and South Kivu Regions of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). This analysis of the DRC may include slavery's roots, geography, growth, magnitude, supply chain of the mining and movement of conflict minerals, the role of law and local organizations, and an overlay of how FTS affects the system. While the ultimate goal for this research is to create proposals for desirable and culturally feasible changes that can reduce the extent of slavery in the North and South Kivu Regions of the DRC, this paper focuses on the first stages of analysis and the base model of the factors that make a community vulnerable to slavery. This paper recommends areas for future research and discussion on how to build further upon the base model.