Volume 1 (1999/2000)
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Volume 2 (2000/2001)
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Slave
Labour:
A Reality in the 21st Century
Clare Holohan
Loreto Abbey SS, Dalkey,
Dublin
No one shall be held in
Slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited
in all their forms
Article 4, Universal Declaration of Human Rights
There are few people who would
find fault with the Article quoted above from the Declaration of Human
Rights. When we hear the word ‘slavery’ an image comes to mind of the
buying and selling of people, their shipment from one country to another
and the abolition of the trade in the nineteenth century. Even if we know
nothing about the slave trade, it is something we think of as part of
our history rather than the present. But the reality is that slavery still
exists TODAY.
According to Anti-slavery
International there are at least 26 million slaves in the world at present.
People - especially children - can be enslaved today for as little as
US$25. Bondage labour or debt bondage is the most widely used method of
enslaving people. It begins when a person takes or is tricked into taking
a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child or some
food. To repay the debt they are forced to work long hours, seven days
a week, 365 days a year. Take an 11-year old boy in India as an example.
He has been placed in bondage by his parents in exchange for about US$35.
He now works 14 hours a day, seven days a week making beedi cigarettes.
This boy is held in ‘debt bondage’. The boy and all his work belong to
the slaveholder as long as the debt is unpaid, but not a penny from his
work is applied to the debt. Until his parents find the money, this boy
is a cigarette-rolling machine, fed just enough to keep him at his task.
Most people in bonded labour receive basic food and shelter as ‘payment’
for their work, but may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down
through several generations.
Forced labour affects people
who are illegally recruited by governments, political parties or private
individuals and forced to work – usually under the threat of violence
or other penalties. This type of labour applies especially to the estimated
800,000 people in Burma who are forced to work by the military regime.
Trafficking is the transport and trade of usually women and children for
economic gain using force or deception. The women are tricked into domestic
labour or prostitution. Sexual exploitation puts a commercial value on
a child. They are often kidnapped, bought, or forced to enter the sex
market. It is a fact that up to 2 million women and girls worldwide are
victims of a growing trade in forced labour within the sex industry. Other
forms of the worst child labour refer to children who work in exploitative
or dangerous conditions. Tens of millions of children around the world
work full time, depriving them of education and recreation crucial to
their personal and social development. In Sierra Leone, children as young
as seven are captured by armed groups and trained as soldiers.
For the most part, slaves
work at the most basic of tasks: mining, logging, farming, begging, hauling
goods, breaking stone, herding and prostitution. But their labour feeds
into our economies. Some charcoal in Brazil is made by enslaved workers
and charcoal is a key ingredient in Brazil’s steel production, the country’s
second largest export. The steel goes into everything from toys to skyscrapers
and especially cars and furniture. Our chocolate comes from cocoa harvested
by slaves in the Ivory Coast, most of who have never tasted chocolate
in their whole life. Our carpets are made by child workers in Pakistan.
We enjoy a lower price for these goods because of the slave input, while
the slaves themselves earn little or nothing.
Slavery exists today despite
the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practised.
It is also prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. Despite
this, many governments are unwilling to enforce the law or to ensure that
those who profit from slavery are punished. Many countries claim that
they are ‘slave-free’ when they are clearly not. In India, declarations
by state governments that that they have eradicated debt bondage have
given up on the struggle to liberate other bonded workers. Under Indian
law, a freed bonded labourer is entitled to compensation and a rehabilitation
grant. But when states are ‘slave free’, local officials are reluctant
to tarnish their record by reporting workers in bondage. Modern slavery
differs from the past in one special way: Slaves today are cheaper than
ever in human history. In the same way that mass production lowered the
cost of what we buy, overpopulation has made slaves plentiful, cheap and
disposable. In 1850, an average agricultural slave in Alabama sold for
$1,000, around $40,000 in today’s money. A child in India can be sold
into bondage for as little as £25 today.
There are many forms of exploitation
in the world, many kinds of injustice and violence. But slavery is exploitation,
violence and injustice rolled into one. What good is our economic and
political power, if we cannot use it to free slaves? But what can we do
to help? Trocaire’s Lenten Campaign this year was to fight slavery. They
work with the local partners in the country to free bonded labourers and
they set up projects for them to help bring their lives back to normality.
Their work cannot be done without the support of the public. Trocaire
has also distributed postcards that can be sent to the International Labour
Organisation (ILO). Other ways we can fight slavery is by purchasing Fairtrade
Mark products such as coffee, tea, honey and chocolate which is on sale
in Oxfam shops nationwide. They can guarantee that bonded labour is not
used in any part of their manufacture. Rugs should be purchased with a
‘rug mark label’ on it to make sure that it has not been made by exploited
children and we can also contact manufacturers to guarantee that chocolate
does not have its origin in the horror that is slavery.
It is surely not too radical
to say that our dignity as civilised human beings can only be preserved
by a determined worldwide struggle to eliminate modern slavery in all
its forms.
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