Independent consultant on human rights & ethical leadership "I would like to express my particular and heartfelt thanks to the scholars who gave their time and expertise to review the papers submitted to this edition of the Journal of Modern Slavery. Their perspicacious observations and feedback were invaluable in strengthening the quality of this edition of the Journal and advancing learning on this crucial but frequently neglected aspect of humanitarian crises". -Aidan McQuade At the outset

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... her extraordinary book, The Silence of the Girls, Pat Barker quotes from Philip Roth's novel, The Human Stain: "All of European literature springs from a fight... 'Divine Muse, sing of the ruinous wrath of Achilles... Begin where they first quarreled, Agamemnon, the King of men, and great Achilles.' And what are they quarrelling about, these two violent, mighty souls? It's as basic as a barroom brawl. They are quarrelling over a woman. A girl really. A girl stolen from her father. A girl abducted in war." Barker's breathtaking retelling of the Iliad strips away the facades of martial glory through which generations have viewed these legends and instead presents this as another universal story: of one young woman, Briseis, striving to survive her enslavement at the hands of those who murdered her relatives, just as millions have done in every war up to and including our present time.