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Still Bound By The Shackles of Slavery
Mediacorp Press, Singapore (Todayonline.com)
Venessa Lee
venessa@mediacorp.com.sg
June 23, 2007
page 1 of 2
A FEW hundred dollars doesn't seem to go far these days. Yet the $300 you just forked out for that
coveted pair of shoes or handbag could also be the "cost" of the slave that helped make them.
.
For that is the average price of a human life in the booming global slave trade, according to Dr Kevin
Bales, president of the Free The Slaves advocacy group.
.
In the 21st century, where trade unions and human rights groups are active around the world, it is easy to
shrug off the millennia-old practice of coerced, unpaid labour as a shrinking trade, or one that exists only
in isolated pockets.
.
On the contrary, with globalisation and the voracious appetite of a world market that takes the "don't see,
don't ask" tack, the slave business has never been busier.
.
Some estimates peg the overall figure at 27 million slaves worldwide — more than the number trafficked
from Africa to the United States in the 19th century, according to South Africa's Sunday Times.
.
And far from being confined to Third World economies, it persists even in rich First World countries.
.
"The, only thing truly new about slavery today is the dramatic fall in slave prices," Dr Bales wrote
recently in a report for the Financial Times (FT). He estimated that, for most of the last 3,500 years, the
price of slaves ranged between £10,000 ($30,600) and £40,000, valued at present currency rates.
.
In short, slaves have never been cheaper than in 2007 — which, ironically, marks the 200th anniversary of
the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire, eventually leading to the collapse of slavery in the
US.
.
THE BIGGEST RACKET, AFTER DRUGS AND ARMS
.
Slaves are defined as those who fall under the coercive domination of another person who provides as
good as no pay, and only enough food and shelter to keep them alive.
.
Being victim to violence — in the form of abuse and rape, for instance — is what distinguishes slaves from
poorly-paid workers.
.
Take two cousins, Ruhal, 12, and Ahmit, 6, who were sold by their families to a sari factory in New Delhi.
.
They were shouted at and beaten if they so much as put down their needles. Ahmit's eardrum had burst
during one such beating, according to the account by British journalist Rageh Omaar in the Mail on
Sunday.
.
Both boys were part of a back-alley sweatshop operation where child slaves spend up to 18 hours a
day sewing tiny beads onto luxurious saris that fetch up to £1,000 in New Delhi.
.
Analysts say the filthy lucre of modern slavery is linked to globalisation — the ease of commerce across
borders intersecting with a surplus of labour, especially in the developing world, and fuelled by
corruption.
.
The Third World has a billion people struggling to live on approximately US$1($1.54) a day — easy
pickings for a human trafficker with his treacherous promises of a better life. According to the United
Nations, after drugs and the arms trade, human trafficking — estimated at US$13.6 billion — is the third
biggest money-spinner for criminals.
.
According to the US State Department's latest figures released this month, about 800,000 persons were
trafficked last year around the world, many into conditions of slavery. In some places, factors such as
official corruption and war exacerbate the plight of the vulnerable.
.
The weak are obvious targets. In a scandal that made headlines last week, nearly 600 slaves — some of
them children — were freed from brutally-managed brick kilns in two provinces in China. Many had been
kidnapped.
.
Investigators said on Friday that government labour monitors and police officers had been involved, and
two officers from the team set up to monitor labour standards in Shanxi province were detained.
.
One of the traffickers arrested, Zhou Jinghuan, told the South China Morning Post she preferred to traffic
in mentally-disabled persons — who accounted for 30 per cent of her "merchandise" — because they
were "obedient and happy when they were given wine to drink".
.
Continued...
1 2 Next >>
Mediacorp Press, Singapore (Todayonline.com)
Venessa Lee
venessa@mediacorp.com.sg
June 23, 2007
page 1 of 2
A FEW hundred dollars doesn't seem to go far these days. Yet the $300 you just forked out for that
coveted pair of shoes or handbag could also be the "cost" of the slave that helped make them.
.
For that is the average price of a human life in the booming global slave trade, according to Dr Kevin
Bales, president of the Free The Slaves advocacy group.
.
In the 21st century, where trade unions and human rights groups are active around the world, it is easy to
shrug off the millennia-old practice of coerced, unpaid labour as a shrinking trade, or one that exists only
in isolated pockets.
.
On the contrary, with globalisation and the voracious appetite of a world market that takes the "don't see,
don't ask" tack, the slave business has never been busier.
.
Some estimates peg the overall figure at 27 million slaves worldwide — more than the number trafficked
from Africa to the United States in the 19th century, according to South Africa's Sunday Times.
.
And far from being confined to Third World economies, it persists even in rich First World countries.
.
"The, only thing truly new about slavery today is the dramatic fall in slave prices," Dr Bales wrote
recently in a report for the Financial Times (FT). He estimated that, for most of the last 3,500 years, the
price of slaves ranged between £10,000 ($30,600) and £40,000, valued at present currency rates.
.
In short, slaves have never been cheaper than in 2007 — which, ironically, marks the 200th anniversary of
the abolition of the slave trade in the British empire, eventually leading to the collapse of slavery in the
US.
.
THE BIGGEST RACKET, AFTER DRUGS AND ARMS
.
Slaves are defined as those who fall under the coercive domination of another person who provides as
good as no pay, and only enough food and shelter to keep them alive.
.
Being victim to violence — in the form of abuse and rape, for instance — is what distinguishes slaves from
poorly-paid workers.
.
Take two cousins, Ruhal, 12, and Ahmit, 6, who were sold by their families to a sari factory in New Delhi.
.
They were shouted at and beaten if they so much as put down their needles. Ahmit's eardrum had burst
during one such beating, according to the account by British journalist Rageh Omaar in the Mail on
Sunday.
.
Both boys were part of a back-alley sweatshop operation where child slaves spend up to 18 hours a
day sewing tiny beads onto luxurious saris that fetch up to £1,000 in New Delhi.
.
Analysts say the filthy lucre of modern slavery is linked to globalisation — the ease of commerce across
borders intersecting with a surplus of labour, especially in the developing world, and fuelled by
corruption.
.
The Third World has a billion people struggling to live on approximately US$1($1.54) a day — easy
pickings for a human trafficker with his treacherous promises of a better life. According to the United
Nations, after drugs and the arms trade, human trafficking — estimated at US$13.6 billion — is the third
biggest money-spinner for criminals.
.
According to the US State Department's latest figures released this month, about 800,000 persons were
trafficked last year around the world, many into conditions of slavery. In some places, factors such as
official corruption and war exacerbate the plight of the vulnerable.
.
The weak are obvious targets. In a scandal that made headlines last week, nearly 600 slaves — some of
them children — were freed from brutally-managed brick kilns in two provinces in China. Many had been
kidnapped.
.
Investigators said on Friday that government labour monitors and police officers had been involved, and
two officers from the team set up to monitor labour standards in Shanxi province were detained.
.
One of the traffickers arrested, Zhou Jinghuan, told the South China Morning Post she preferred to traffic
in mentally-disabled persons — who accounted for 30 per cent of her "merchandise" — because they
were "obedient and happy when they were given wine to drink".
.
Continued...
1 2 Next >>