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 ?
• What do these definitions mean to you?
?
•Can you think of examples of similar but less extreme
situations within our own society?
What is international law on slavery?
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.”
•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;
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.
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
2. Bonded labour. Boy in garment factory
in S. Asia
Sudanese Children abducted to be
camel jockeys in the Middle East
What types of slavery exist today?...
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
Miners forced to search for gold in
South America.
•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.
Agricultural migrant workers
What benefit would there be in using
forced labourers?
?
What types of slavery exist today ?...
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.
Why might poorer people be more
likely to become bonded labourers?
?
What types of slavery exist today?...
3. Slavery by Descent
This 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?
?
What types of slavery exist today?...
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
A woman receiving counselling after having
escaped from a gang of pimps
Why do you think it might be easy to enslave
someone if you “traffic” them to a different country
?
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 slavery
then what does that say about the values
and morals of that society.
On the Isle of Man we value a great
many things. In particular we value our
freedom to choose what we believe is
right for us.
How can we say its ok for us to have
freedom and yet allow it to be taken
away from other people for no other
reason than our own pleasure and
profit?
Q
Q
If you knew that there were people
on the Island who supported slavery,
and were capable of the cruelty and
lack of feeling for others that slavery
involves... how would you view
them?
Slavery not only is detrimental to the
slaves but can also damage the people
who practice slavery or who let it
happen…
.............. By our inaction,
are we partly responsible for letting
slavery continue to happen ?
Q
Q
Q
........what difference can we make?
See presentation No2.