What is freedom?

"Almost two million people have died in the course of the current civil war. One expert was saying it was probably 50,000 at the most [who had been enslaved]. Unfortunately, 50,000 is not a lot of people to have been affected.".
             It took an unorthodox effort by Christian anti-slavery organizations to catapult the Sudan's human rights situation into the public eye. Groups such as Christian Solidarity International Inc. and The American Anti-Slavery Group Inc. have recently begun sending representatives to Africa to purchase slaves and free them. The tactic is known, not coincidentally, as "redemption." Redemption capitalizes brilliantly on the economic disparity between the First and Third Worlds: In the impoverished Sudan, a human life is worth only around $50, a comparatively modest sum for Western do-gooders to raise. But the fact that the money goes into the pockets of the slaveholders has given many human rights experts, including Rone, pause. "It's worrying because it has the potential to attract more raiding and more profiteering by the raiders," she says.
             That hasn't deterred activists like American Anti-Slavery Group representative Jesse Sage. "I know it's controversial, but this isn't a market with supply and demand," he points out. "The taking of women and children is merely a byproduct of a military situation." He adds that reports of kidnappings have actually gone down in the last year, so his group's efforts are hardly creating a market.
             Besides, the prospect of buying a person's freedom is irresistibly seductive to Americans weary of the Sisyphean struggle to rehabilitate the Third World. Would-be freedom riders sent to the Sudan by Christian Solidarity International Inc. have returned with blithe idealism comfortably intact. One Colorado schoolteacher told newspapers how thrilled she was to see a recently freed woman suddenly give birth under a tree. "What can you say when you free a woman and you know that this child was born in freedom?" she said.