Slavery today ..........

Looking at aspects of contemporary slavery.

Section 1: What types of slavery exist today?

Section 2: What difference can we make?

1807 the abolition of the slave trade .....

2007... It is estimated that throughout the world there are

still between 12-27million people living in

slavery

I am Achen Blual, I am thirteen

I was taken in the May raid. My mother was killed in the raid and my brother and sister were also taken. I don’t know where they are. My Father was captured. I don’t know whether he is still alive. The raiders came on horse and tied my hands, and pulled me behind them. It was 30 days footing (walk) and I was frightened. I knew that they killed people. I was taken to Cedep with others from Abin Dau. My master had several concubines. His sons beat me and mistreated me. I washed clothes and went to the market as well as cracking ground nuts and planting seeds. I slept outside under sacks in the corner. I escaped after four months and a trader found me and brought me back here. I am so happy to be free. I am going to live with my relatives in Abin Dau. Taken from: This Immoral Trade. By Baroness Caroline Fox.

What is slavery ?It is being forced to work through mental or physical threat

It is being owned

or controlled by

an ‘owner’

usually through

mental or

physical threat.

It is being dehumanised, treated as a commodity, sold and bought as property

It is being

physically

constrained, or

having

restrictions

placed upon

freedom of

movement. • What do these definitions mean to you?

•Can you think of examples of similar but less extreme situations within our own society?

?

Article 4 UN Declaration of Human Rights

“No one shall be held in slavery servitude. Slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”

What is international law on slavery?

•There are new UN and EU convention policies against trafficking, and new policies against bonded labour in Asia, but though countries may sign up to international agreements, prosecutions are rare… Why ?

Slaves are being trafficked from 127 different countries around the world and being “received” by 137 countries .......

1. US: an estimated 20, 000 people are trafficked into the US annually, mainly from poorer South American countries, many are forced into prostitution.

2. Dominican Republic: hundreds of thousands of Haitians are rounded up near the border and made to work on the Dominican sugar plantations

3. Brazil: Up to 25,000 people are said to be working as slave labourers, mostly clearing the Amazon rain forest.

4. Mauritania: Up to 1million people are allegedly held as” inheritable property”

5. Sudan: Northern Militia continue to take women and Children in slave raids

6. Europe: Tens of thousands of women and girls are cheated, abducted and forced into prostitution right across Europe.

7. UAE: Up to 14, 000 boys a year are reportedly trafficked from S, Asia to the UAE and other gulf states to race camels.

8. Pakistan: Men women and children are bonded into forced labour in agriculture and industry.

9. Burma: Forced labour used by the government In a growing number of infrastructure projects

10 Thailand: Thousands of girls are sex slaves for tourists Source: ILO, American anti slavery group, US State Department;

bbc.co.uk

Facts and figures ... • There are more

slaves today than were seized from Africa during the entire 400 years of the transatlantic slave trade.

• 80% of slaves around the world are women and children

• 43% of slaves on the global market are used for sex

•The UN estimates that human traffickers earn around $10 billion per year, creating a market equivalent to the illegal arms and drugs trade.

•It is estimated that a slave costs an average of $100. The price of a slave in 1850 in America was £20,000, the average price of a slave today is just £40.

What are the types of slavery that exist today?...

1.Forced Labour. Boy soldiers in Uganda. 2. Bonded labour. Boy in garment factory

in S. Asia

3. Slavery by descent; “untouchable” woman in a brick factory

4. Trafficking: A distraught trafficked Chinese girl being rescued by authorities.

5. Child labour: Cambodian children breaking rocks for hardcore

Sudanese Children abducted to be camel jockeys in the Middle East

What types of slavery exist today?...

Miners forced to search for gold in South America.

1. Forced labour •This is the most commonly understood form of slavery where someone is illegally forced to work, often under threat of violence and other penalties.

• 20% of forced labour is state imposed by the military (or rebels); forced prison labour, or compulsory participation in public works

•75% of forced labour is privately imposed of which 64% is bonded labour, forced domestic labour and forced labour in agriculture, & 11% is commercial sexual exploitation; people who are in prostitution or other forms of commercial sexual activity and cannot leave.

Approximately 12 million are living in some kind of forced labour around the world.What benefit would there be in using

forced labourers? ?Agricultural migrant workers

2. Bonded Labour The most common form of slavery is

where labour is taken in repayment for a loan. This could be for money to buy medicine, or to buy a ticket to a richer country in hope of finding better work.

To repay the debt the bonded person has to work long hours often in dangerous and hazardous conditions, the labourer receives basic food and shelter. Often the bonded person has no idea how much they owe the lender. Interest is charged on the original loan and can be passed from one generation to the next.

What types of slavery exist today ?...

Why might poorer people be more likely to become bonded labourers? ?

What types of slavery exist today?...

3. Slavery by DescentThis occurs where you are born a slave because you belong to a “slave class” or are from a group that society views as being suited to being used as slave labour.

This is widespread in India, Pakistan and Nepal. Entire families can be enslaved in this way, usually low caste “untouchables” according to religious belief. Membership to this group is hereditary. They are not considered equal to other groups and are prone to exploitation. ?How can poor people with no education ever get themselves out of this situation?

4. Trafficking : The commercial trade in human beings is one of the fastest growing sectors of organised crime. Thousands of individuals, mainly women and minors, are illegally transported from one area to an other for the purpose of enslaving them once they reach their destination. The traffickers are often well organised criminal gangs.

This enslavement can either be through raids and forced captivity (e.g. as in Sudan today) or through deception, offering poor people fictitious jobs in distant countries. On arrival the victim is stripped of travel documents, given a false identity &, as an illegal immigrant, forced into a job. They and their family are threatened by disfigurement or death should the slave try to alert the authorities

What types of slavery exist today?...

Why do you think it might be easy to enslave someone if you “traffic” them to a different country

A woman receiving counselling after having escaped from a gang of pimps ?

What types of slavery exist today?...

5. Child Labour.

Child labour is common in the poorest developing countries in the world where everyone in the family helps with work in order for the family to survive.

It is considered slavery when is used for the benefit and profit of others and if this work is extreme with heavy physical work, working long hours in dangerous conditions which are harmful to the child .

?Why are children often the preferred choice as slaves over adults?

If a society is able to accept slaverythen what does that say about the

valuesand morals of that society.

On the Isle of Man we value a greatmany things. In particular we value

ourfreedom to choose what we believe isright for us.

How can we say its ok for us to havefreedom and yet allow it to be takenaway from other people for no otherreason than our own pleasure andprofit?

Q

Q

If you knew that there were peopleon the Island who supported slavery,and were capable of the cruelty andlack of feeling for others that slaveryinvolves... how would you viewthem?

Slavery not only is detrimental to theslaves but can also damage the peoplewho practice slavery or who let ithappen… .............. By our inaction,are we partly responsible for lettingslavery continue to happen ?

Q

Q

Q

........what difference can we make?See presentation No2.