Does free trade foster slave-like working conditions? That is one possible implication of a recent New York Times article, “An Ugly Side of Free Trade: Sweatshops in Jordan,” by Steven Greenhouse and Michael Barbaro. The piece takes a hard look at what is going on in Jordan and comes to some rather shocking conclusions.

It is apparently common practice among some Jordanian garment manufacturers to promise jobs and security to immigrant workers and then, after they arrive, to take their passports and pay them far less than the country’s legal minimum wage. The story recounts how some workers “are complaining of dismal conditions–of 20-hour days, of not being paid for months and of being hit by supervisors and jailed when they complain.”

These allegations represent serious and clear human-rights violations. Once the reality of such claims has been established, the next step is to assign the proper measure of blame and culpability. Some allege that the lion’s share of responsibility should be placed upon large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target (major customers of Jordan’s clothing producers), and with the free-trade system itself. In fact, however, the problems in the Jordanian garment industry are much more complex than such a simplistic analysis would indicate.

The first thing to recognize is that this situation resembles a form of temporary slavery. There are men and women in Jordan who have been lured to another country by the promise of prosperity, and then forced to remain in servitude. International Justice Mission, a human-rights agency that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery, and oppression, calls this “bonded slavery,” a practice in which large debts are incurred by workers to pay for food, lodging, or transportation. With the meager wages that the workers receive, they can never pay off these debts, and so they are effectively forced to perform grueling work for years on end, ultimately incurring more debt than when they began.

At its most basic level, such slavery is a violation of the moral order that governs human social relations. This is attested to by Article 4 of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states, “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

The great majority of guilt lies with those who commit these crimes and the governments that facilitate them. The owners and operators of the garment-manufacturing facilities that use slave labor are the primary agents of this evil, and as such deserve to be condemned and punished.

But the situation in Jordan could only persist in the absence of responsible government. Jordan has minimum-wage and labor laws, which are being violated by those who make use of slave labor. The refusal or inability of the Jordanian authorities to enforce the rule of law speaks to the corruption and complicity of that government.

Where individual conscience fails to correct or restrain evil behavior, the government must act as an external check. This is why IJM is active in situations where the injustice violates the local or national laws of the country in question. The issue then becomes simply the genuine enforcement of existing law .

It might also be argued that a measure of blame should lie with those Americans–whether large retail corporations or individual consumers–who do business with foreign slave-labor outfits. To the extent that this is true, there exists a responsibility for these Americans to correct the injustices perpetrated by their foreign business partners.

In the free-trade system, there is a unique ability for American companies to use their economic leverage to push for an end to foreign labor exploitation. For example, as the NYT story relates, it is the policy of many conscientious businesses to engage foreign factories “to improve conditions, rather than automatically withdraw their business.” As Beth Keck, a Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said, “Our business with the factory is the only leverage we have to push for improvement.”

The biblical maxim that the love of money is the source of all evil rings true, and free-trade systems are not immune to the corruptions of greed. But instead of demonizing free trade, a much more constructive, honest, and just approach would be to assign blame and praise where it really is due, and to work toward practical solutions to existing problems. In the case of slave labor in the Jordanian garment industry, this means assigning blame to slave factories and corrupt governments overseas, as well as recognizing the positive incentives that the free-trade system can produce for humanitarian ends.

–Jordan Ballor is an associate editor at the Acton Institute in Grand Rapids, Mich.