Modern Day Slavery Around The World

The following are two articles that deal with modern day Slavery around the World. These to let everyone know that it's not a thing of the past. Those who seek reparations for something in the past should keep in mind that maybe there are some today who should also be accountable.

B.K

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Slavery now!
By Dr. LESLIE JERMYN.

Slave ships crisscrossing the Atlantic with their human cargo of misery and desperation have been consigned to the dustbin of history. The trans-Atlantic slave trade turned the corner in 1838 when Britain banned slavery and other European and American powers followed suit. The cruel stories of the transportation of eleven million Black Africans on European vessels to the New World raised moral questions in the corridors of power. Little by little, whilst huge profits were being made, the morality of the institution was being questioned and the anti-slavery movement gathered force. The work that began in London in 1787 with the founding of the London Anti-Slavery Society (now known as Anti-Slavery International) remains unfinished today. Over 200 years later, slavery is a daily reality for millions of world citizens. Modern slaves often do not leave their own countries once captured or trapped, and if they do, they are more likely to do so on airplanes or buses carrying official work visas. Since slavery is officially outlawed around the world, slave traders work underground or disguise their business as labour contracting. Whether acknowledged as such or not, the practice of using slave labour flourishes in certain industries. The American Anti-Slavery Group estimates (in 1999) that there are at least 27 million slaves in the modern world. Other estimates put the figure as high as 200 million. Whatever their number, they are living and dying in every region of the world.

The United Nations defines a slave as anyone whose movement or decision-making abilities are curtailed such that they do not have right to choose employers. This rather broad definition is designed to encompass the types of slave labour that characterize the twentieth century institution, such as bonded labour, serfdom, servile marriage, child labour, migrant labour and forced labour. It also still includes the more traditional form, chattel slavery, in which one person is subject to the will of another and treated like property. Although chattel slavery is now relatively uncommon, its nineteenth century stepchild, debt bondage, is, in one form or another, the most common form of slavery today. Debt bondage is the practice of exchanging labour (that of the debtor or members of his/her family) for a loan. Technically, there is nothing illegal about this exchange but the lines are crossed when labourers are underage, conditions of work are hazardous, labour is not remunerated at standard rates, debts are artificially or illegally created or inflated, and/or workers are held or sold against their will. The people most vulnerable to this type of slavery are women working as domestics or sex workers, children and migrant labourers.

Perhaps the most notorious examples of modern chattel slavery are those of Mauritania and the Sudan. In the Sudan, a civil war has raged between the Arabized north and African south for 33 of the 43 years since independence from Britain in 1956. The tactics of cultural annihilation practiced by the Islamic government include raiding non-Islamic Dinka and Nuba villages in the south for slaves who are then sold in the north. These people have suffered branding, rape, castration and female circumcision and number an estimated 100,000. In Mauritania, the situation is different. The dominant ethnic group is the White Moors or Beydanes who have traditionally held Black Moors or Abid as slaves. The Abid have lived in slavery to the Beydanes for centuries and modern slaves are born into their lowly position. They are often abused and can be bought and sold at the will of their owners. Full chattel slaves number approximately 80-90,000 while another 200-300,000 are classified as ‘other slaves’. Both countries have resisted international efforts to document slavery within their borders and neither country has made any significant efforts to abolish the practice despite international outcry. Though not a country unto themselves, the Tuareg nomads of the Sahara also hold chattel slaves and like the Abid in Mauritania, they are born and will die in slavery. Their numbers are unknown.

There are numerous examples of situations of debt-bonded labour that approach chattel slavery in the severity of treatment and loss of human rights. Brazilian families are continuing to search for missing male relatives who left to work in the Amazon region and have not been heard from since. They are generally poor men from the northeast who follow recruiters promising decent wages and good working conditions. Once they arrive, they are stripped of their identity papers and forced to work clearing jungle for little to no pay. They are charged for everything including tools, transport, food and lodging and told they have to work off the debt. They are often chained together while they work and sleep in guarded compounds. Those who try to escape are killed. The government has outlawed this type of slavery, but there have been few prosecutions and there is no witness protection programme for those who are brave enough to testify against powerful landowners.

On the other side of the planet, ten million Indian people work in farming and manufacturing industries under similar conditions. They generally come from the lower strata of Indian society such as the untouchables, indigenous or tribal peoples, poor women and children. Some have been ‘sold’ into bondage by a relative who accepts a loan in exchange for their labour, while others are born into debt and into bondage. Hundreds of thousands face identical circumstances in Nepal and millions more live in bondage in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

These are all examples of people being exploited within their own countries. The situation is often worse when workers migrate and become vulnerable outsiders. Known as braceros, approximately 300,000 Haitians are trapped in bonded work in the Dominican Republic. Their tragedy begins when they manage to scrape together enough money for a three-month visa to work in the sugar cane plantations of the DR. The braceros live on the plantations in villages with no sewage or public services. Their pay is frequently withheld and they are forced to buy food at inflated prices using company issued coupons and tokens. When they cannot afford to extend their work permits, they become illegal and even more vulnerable to exploitation. They fear expulsion from the country without backpay and this keeps them from organizing or demanding better treatment. The Dominican government has amended its labour code ostensibly to protect these workers, but government cane plantations continue to be among the worst offenders.

Among the most abused of modern migrant labourers are women. Poor women from around the world cross borders on the promise of steady employment at good rates. Chinese and Philippine women accept debts of $6-7,000US to acquire jobs on Saipan, one of the islands that make up the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, a United States territory since 1976. Saipan is an Export Production Zone that caters to such US American brand names as Polo, The Gap, Jones New York, Liz Claiborne, Calvin Klein, Disney and JC Penny. The women are often told that they are going to the US only to find themselves living in guarded barracks, working without pay in Saipan. They are forced to sign shadow contracts that restrict their freedom to leave, organize or change employers. Some have been forced to abort children if they become pregnant. Needless to say, US labour standards and practices are not honoured here.

Women from South and Southeast Asia and Africa also migrate to the Middle East, particularly Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and richer centers in Asia like Singapore and Kuala Lumpur to become domestic servants. Like their counterparts in Saipan, they are often misled and mistreated once they arrive and are indebted to recruitment agents by the cost of their journey. Their employers confiscate their papers to make them dependent and there have been many cases of physical and sexual abuse.

The other major wave of female migration involves the sex trade. Thailand is notorious for its sex tourism industry, but what many clients fail to realize is that the prostitutes and dancers are often underage and are working against their will. Young girls from northern Thailand, Burma and Cambodia are ‘bought’, lured or abducted by intermediaries working for Thai brothels. The girls are raped and beaten until they succumb to the routine of prostitution work. They are exposed to STD’s, are often drug addicted and have no recognized rights. This industry caters largely to foreigners from other parts of Asia, Europe and North America. Notably, a number of countries – including the UK since 1997 – have passed laws that make it illegal for citizens to engage in sexual acts with minors when they are abroad.

These laws do nothing to protect adult women in the same circumstances, however, and thousands of young women from Eastern Europe now find themselves trapped in Israeli and Western European brothels. Facing a hopeless employment situation at home, these women are signing up for work abroad as exotic dancers and models. When they arrive their passports are stolen and they are forced to work as prostitutes or are sold as sex slaves. The numbers of enslaved Eastern European women are unknown, but 400,000 women have left the Ukraine alone in the last ten years. An auction of semi-naked women was raided in 1997 in Italy and, in Israel, where the sale of humans is not illegal, European women are worth $500-1,000US each. Many Eastern European sex slaves hope for capture by the police since it is the only way they are likely to be able to return home.

If the plight of women were not horrifying enough, that of poor children around the world is chilling. Children are working in conditions of slavery nearly everywhere one finds poverty or crises. In West Africa, children from Benin and Togo are being exported to wealthier countries like the Ivory Coast and Nigeria as domestic chattel slaves. Cambodian and Vietnamese children are purchased or abducted to work as beggars in Thailand. These children are sometimes mutilated to earn more money and are always malnourished to keep them dependent on the agents who control them. In war torn Uganda, Amnesty International estimates that there are at least 8,000 abducted children working as soldiers for the rebel army, the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA). Children of both sexes are made to fight while girls are also abused sexually by male soldiers. The LRA supports the Sudanese government against Sudan’s rebel forces in the south and the Sudanese Army reciprocates by returning runaway child soldiers.

The ILO estimates that 250 million children work worldwide. Not all of them are abducted, sold, abused or enslaved, but many sacrifice their childhood in order to survive in a world of poverty and economic insecurity. On a positive note, the carpet making industry of Pakistan has succumbed to international pressure and has agreed to work with the ILO to phase out the use of child labour over a three-year period beginning in December of 1998. This will hopefully free half to one million child debt slaves from appalling labour conditions.

Ships with their cargos of human misery and desperation no longer navigate the Middle Passage. Slavery today is subtler and less visible. The change in social attitudes over the past two hundred years has forced traders, governments and cultural institutions that support slavery to work behind a veil of denial and subterfuge. But, anywhere there is poverty, desperation or crisis, there are middlemen to negotiate, buy, lure, abduct or entrap their victims into slavery. The world market still runs on the profit principle and the sizeable market niche, the trade in human lives and labour, is still viable.
© Dr. Leslie Jermyn and The Global Aware Cooperative. Reproduction requires permission of the copyright owner.

http://www.globalaware.org/Artlicles_eng/slave_art_eng.htm

Modern Day Slavery Around The World

We have all heard the stories of how slavery was ended in 1865. Yet, even today there are examples of slavery in the world. I am not talking about conditions that are the "equal" of slavery under one theory or another. I am talking about out-and-out slavery. I am talking about people being kidnapped or tricked and then held against their will. People who must work every day long hours or be beat. I am talking about people who are given no money for their labors. People who are bought and sold.

Why would slavery ever exist? The reason is money. Employees cost money. It's a lot cheaper to steal their labor than pay them.

The surprising thing is that it actually goes on in the United States.

Newsweek Magazine (May 4, 1992) reports that slavery is widespread in two African countries, Mauritania and Sudan. In Mauritania, over 100,000 Africans are enslaved. Their families were made slaves by the sword during the 12th century invasions. In the centuries that followed, they accepted it as natural.

Dada Ould Mbarek, 25, of Mauritania, says he and his whole family are slaves. Mbarek spends his back-breaking day taking water from a well and bringing it to paddies where vegetables are grown.

Mbarek's boss lives in the city and owns many cars. He owns 15 slaves in all.

Women in poor Asian countries are tricked into coming into places like Saudi Arabia with promises of jobs. When they get there they are forced to become permanent household slaves, without pay. They are not permitted to leave and are beaten often to control obedience.

One Filipino who escaped from Kuwait claimed "The whole country was a jail."

Encyclopedia Britannica 1992 World Data Annual shows that the economically active sector of the population in Kuwait is 699,000. And one must remember that this leaves out a lot of unemployed children and old people. And a lot of women. Only 20.6 percent of women are employed.

Yet, the total official population is only 400,000. That shows a lot of workers are from overseas. And, only 9% of all workers are in manufacturing, with only 1% in agriculture. What do the rest of them do?

It seems that 53% of them are in the category of "services." Compare this to the US, where 32% are in services, and Saudi Arabia, where 29% are in services, and Egypt, where 35% are in services. What do the extra 20% of service workers in Kuwait do?

Laxmi Swami, an Indian woman lured with a housekeepers job, escaped when her Kuwaiti "employers" took her on a trip with them to London. She was kept behind bars for 4 years, half-starved, with daily beatings with an electric cord. "Hundreds of times they called me slave, hundreds of times" said Swami.

Anti-Slavery International of Britain says this is all too common, even today. When Iraq invaded Kuwait, embassies in Kuwait were flooded with "guest workers" desperately taking advantage of their one opportunity to escape.

Slavery takes different forms in different lands. In Pakistan and India there is debt bondage. Poor people are tricked with promises of good jobs, but they are isolated and must deal with their employer in every way. The food they buy and other required things are sold only by their employers, with very high prices. The workers are forced to stay and work until the debt is paid off. But the deck is stacked so the debt keeps getting bigger. The "employee" is a slave for life.

And, even beyond life. The children are kept working until the debt is paid, which never happens. Generations are forced to work without ever seeing a day of freedom.

Like other slaveries, force is used to keep the worker in his place. Beatings, threats and killings are commonplace.

The type of work is different, though. In Kuwait they are household servants. In India it is usually profit making work such as working in stone quarries, brickmaking and carpetmaking.

An ABC TV show recently did an expose on slavery as it exists today. It focused on three countries: India, Brazil, and the United States.

In India it was common for agents of manufacturers to go to rural areas and trick uneducated country folk. These people often had never been to a city, and knew nothing of city life. They lived very traditionally and were very poor. India is one of the poorest countries in the world.

The agents would find poor people with a lot of children, and offer good jobs to one or more. Sometimes they would pay the parents an advance on salary, which would be pennies to us, but was valuable to people in India. Then, they would take the children away. They would make all sorts of promises to the parents that were never kept.

The report showed the heartbreak of parents who never saw their children again. All they knew was that their children were gone forever.

Back in the city, the children were put at work weaving carpets. It seems that their little fingers can make tighter, better knots than adults can, making a higher quality carpet. The ABC news camera burst into a room with dozens of children working feverishly at their looms.

One child, named Israel, told his story. Israel was 12 years old. One day agents appeared at his village, and spoke to his parents. They promised he would make money, but they never pay him. They feed him very little. They make him work all day and night, and beat him when he stops. He sleeps on the floor with 40 other boys. He shows his scars for the camera.

When he left his village, they promised he could visit his family every year. In 4 years, he had not seen any member of his family. Naturally, he never went to school. He was way too busy working for that.

It turned out that every boy working there was under 16. Once they got too big, it was cheaper to just dump them on the street in another town, and go round up some more boys. So, if Israel had not been rescued, he would someday go free. But he could never go home.

Without help, Israel could never find his native village. He had never left his village before. He did not know its location. He could not read. He did not even know where he was. Most importantly, he had no money. And, the bosses would scare them with stories of what would happen if they tried to run away.

An anti-slavery campaigner got the man running the sweatshop to tell who he was working for. And, when the trail was followed, the employer turned out to be a very important man in the community, the school principal. "How could you make all those boys work and not go to school?" he was questioned. He just shrugged.

Lots of carpets sold in this country labeled as being Persian or Chinese actually come from India. Many of the largest carpet distributors had business dealings with little Israel's "employers." The beautiful carpets many people have in their homes were made with the labor of these sad little boys.

On December 9, 1994, ABC News with Peter Jennings named escaped slave Iqbal Masih as the Person of the Week. "They threaten us not to even think of leaving. They tell us, 'We'll burn your fingers in oil if you even try to leave. We'll put you in oil.'"

"I would start working at 4:00 a.m. and work until 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. at night. If the children fell asleep or were slow in their work, they would be punished by either being beaten or starved."

Iqbal was 12 years old. He worked at the factory since he was 4. He never got paid and was a slave. "Even when we are sick, we are forced to work. If we are slow, we are struck" he said.

Two carpet dealers tried to say this was just a regular job. "It gives kids something to do. It's not hard labor. They like what they do" said one.

"It's a family business. It is not all that bad what they say. They exaggerate everything." said another.

The expose show next traveled to Brazil, where a different kind of business was involved. In big cities of Brazil there are a lot of unemployed people. A lot of them are very poor and live in very little shacks all crowded together. Lots of them hang out all day and have no hope for the future.

A man would go around and meet teenage girls. He was handsome and talked real smooth. He would flirt with them. He would tell them that he knew where there was a lot of good paying jobs working as maids and cooks. Up in the gold fields of Brazil there were boom towns, filled with rich men and not enough women to do the cleaning and cooking (as in the US, such jobs in Brazil are generally held by women). He would fill their heads with whatever dream seemed to be the girls thing. And he would get them to agree to fly away with him and some other girls he met to a great new opportunity.

When they got there, they got some surprises. The boom town turned out to be a few muddy blocks of crummy little shacks. They were told they owed huge amounts of money for the plane ticket and their rent and their food. There were no jobs as maids or waitresses. The only jobs were as prostitutes. They were told they had to be prostitutes and pay back their debts. They would not be allowed to leave.

These places were hundreds of miles deep in the jungle and none of the girls knew where they were. There was no phones and no police. The only way in and out was by plane, and no one could afford that, assuming the boss would allow it in the first place. There was only one way to get any money at all.

Girls who refused to go along were beaten. Some who tried to escape were killed. The rest of them were scared and did what they were told.

Like in other countries, the debt can never be paid. In the little mining town you had to deal with your boss. He provided the room where the girl slept with customers, and he took most of the money as rent. Every bit of food she bought was bought at his prices. And they made it a point to introduce the girls to alcohol and drugs, which of course were sold only by their boss. Some girls, being very unhappy, were regular customers. The more the girl worked, the deeper in debt she became. And she became a slave.

When ABC News with Brazilian police raided this one mining town, they found about 40 teenage girls working as prostitutes for one boss. They asked who wanted to leave this place and go back to the city. Every single one of them raised their hands. Several began to cry.

And that brings us to the United States. The slavery uncovered in the United States was not prostitution like in Brazil. It was not manufacturing work like in India and Pakistan. It was not household servant like in Kuwait. But it was worked a lot like them.

A guy would go around places where unemployed people would hang out and offer them jobs working on a farm. "It's just temporary" they would say. A farmer would need help picking his oranges or his cotton or his sugar cane just for a few weeks. They could all ride up there, work for a few weeks, and come back to the city with a few dollars in their pockets. People were picked up in all the major cities of Florida. They would load up in vans and station wagons and head out. They would go to places like Georgia and South Carolina.

When they got there they moved into a compound surrounded by fences and barbed wire. Vicious dogs patrolled all night. The bosses got them up early. They were worked hard all day long. They were charged room and board that was more than they got paid. They were encouraged to buy liquor and drugs on credit.

None of the workers was allowed to leave. When they worked, they had a overseers armed with shotguns. They were marched to work, and marched home again. They never saw a telephone. They never saw an outsider. And they picked cotton all day long. Sometimes it was other crops.

Sooner or later the cotton would be picked, and the workers would want to go home like he promised. But they could not leave. They owed a lot of money. So the boss took them out late at night and drove them to some other big farm where they needed help with the crops, and it started all over again.

These places were all on private property, far away from the road. They never saw any outsiders. No one knew they were there. If anyone knew, they didn't care. The people they worked for and that the boss got paid by were rich important people in their area. The workers were nobody.

Most of the slaves were poor black people, but some of them were poor white people too. In this one operation, it was actually a black man who was the slave driver.

Some of the people rescued had been slaves for years. Others were younger. One young black man talked about how now he finally knew what it was like for his ancestors. He said he would never pick cotton again, not for all the money in the world.

As you can see, there is still a lot of slavery in the world today. As long as people want to make money, some will want to steal. Slavery is the worst kind of stealing. They don't just steal your money. They steal your life, your freedom, everything.

It was not long ago when slavery was completely legal in the United States. It was accepted that people could be stolen, kept prisoner at gunpoint, and forced to work. It was accepted that you could be beaten or whipped if you didn't work fast enough.

Now these things are illegal, but the law still helps the slavemasters. Unions can't get to farm workers because they are on private property. The law keeps them out. So no one can find out that maybe they are being kept as slaves.

People own these giant plantations that need a lot of workers and make it pay to steal them. If these were small farms the workers would get paid. Some of these families have had these big farms ever since the days of slavery.

In India and Pakistan, there is no law making kids go to school, and there is no law saying kids can't work. So if kids are working, that could be legal. Again, private property keeps snoopers out.

The stories of today's slaves helps us understand a little about the slaves from before. At least today's slaves have some hope of being rescued someday. Before the Civil War, the slaves did not even have that.

http://www.injusticeline.com/slave1.html