EUREKA - Junius Rodriguez hopes a new exhibit at Eureka College will bring public awareness to the plight of 27 million slaves worldwide, more than at any time in history.

The exhibit, "Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America," runs March 12 through April 19 at Eureka's Melick Library. The exhibit is on loan from the Gilder-Lehrman Institute for American History in New York.

"Slavery today is found in all parts of the world, but it takes different forms," Rodriguez said.

U.S. government reports, for instance, say 15,000 people are brought into the United States each year for labor or sexual exploitation.

Slavery continues to exist because of a lack of awareness and lack of morale outrage, he said.

The exhibit follows the Feb. 23 nationwide release of the film "Amazing Grace," which highlights the efforts of British abolitionists 200 years ago to end the transatlantic slave trade.

The college has ties of its own to the subject: Eureka College was founded in 1855 by a group of abolitionists who left Kentucky because of their opposition to slavery.

Rodriguez, an associate professor of history at the college and author of several books on slavery, said the practice continues around the world and in the United States.

Stan Irvin, associate pastor at Wesley United Methodist Church in Bloomington, shares Rodriguez's concerns and agrees the public's awareness must be increased.

"In India and Pakistan, bonded labor is the most common form" of slavery, said Rodriguez. "In southeastern Asian nations like Thailand, the sex trade uses many enslaved laborers. In Sudan and Mauritania, people are enslaved and used as domestic laborers. In Uganda, children are captured and enslaved as child soldiers. In Sierra Leone, large numbers of the workers in the cocoa industry are enslaved.

"You can buy a person for about $80 in parts of West Africa," he added.

Modern-day slavery can take several forms, according to the London-based Anti-Slavery International. With bonded labor, for instance, people take a loan and are forced to work long hours even though they never may be able to pay off the loan.

Trafficking is the fastest-growing means by which people are forced into slavery by violence, deception or coercion, according to the group's Web site. Other practices include early or forced marriages of women and girls who are married without choice, and slavery by descent, where people are born into a slave class or are from a group that society views as suited to being used as slave labor.

Rodriguez, who became interested in slavery while growing up in the South, says more modern-day abolitionists are needed. But something else also is key, he said.

"Every country in the world has laws to outlaw slavery, but they need to be enforced," said Rodriguez. His books include "The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery" and "Chronology of World Slavery."

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What: "Free at Last: A History of the Abolition of Slavery in America."

When: March 12 through April 9, Melick Library at Eureka College, Eureka.

Hours: 6 to 11 p.m. Sunday, 7:45 a.m. to 11 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 7:45 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Friday and 1 to 5 p.m. Saturday. The library is closed April 6-8.

Related lectures

(All at 7:30 p.m. in Gammon Room, Melick Library)

March 13: "Transatlantic Murmurings: The Ideological Origins of Abolitionism" by Junius Rodriguez of Eureka College.

March 20: "From Slave Hound to Slave Liberator: Abraham Lincoln and Abolitionism" by Ron Keller of Lincoln College.

March 27: "Hearts Beating for Liberty: Women Abolitionists in the Old Northwest" by Stacey Robertson of Bradley University.

April 2: "The Interest of One is the Interest of All: The Anti-Slavery Movement in Illinois" by Matthew