By Jason Johnson for The Root - When CNN broke the story several weeks ago that slavery—not wage slavery, not emotional slavery, not virtual slavery, but actual whips-and-chains-forced labor slavery—was alive and well in the North African nation of Libya, Americans finally started to take notice. Sort of. While there has been some reporting on the issue and a few statements from government leaders across the world, there has not been a sustained political and social media effort to address the Libyan slave trade akin to the 2014 Bring Back Our Girls campaign for the kidnapping victims of Boko Haram in Nigeria, or even the well-intentioned but poorly conceived Kony 2012 campaign—perhaps because the “African slavery” issue is stickier, more pervasive and, worst of all, involves the United States. The Root spoke to criminal-defense attorney and asylum expert Yodit Tewolde, who is also a legal analyst for CNN, Fox and TV One, about what is really happening in Libya right now and what responsibility African Americans really have in the current crisis. Yodit Tewolde (pronounced YO-Deet Teh-WELL-dah) was raised in Dallas, but her family is from Eritrea, and she had firsthand experience with the African slave trade long before it become a late-2017 story. “People act like this is new; this has been going on for years,” she said over the phone, holding back frustration and emotion. Thousands of refugees, primarily from countries like Eritrea and Sudan, are fleeing poverty and violence in their own countries, only to end up the victims of smugglers and slave traders at major ports in Libya.
