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Slavery has been abolished
The abolition of slavery was a giant step for mankind. It showed us that we (most of us) were able to step over our shadows of greed and bloated egos, over our bible verses, which were used to justify our ill-treatment of other humans. Our cries against slavery made us into intelligent beings, which understood that just because someone was different, didn’t mean that they were less.
And today, we have washed our hands of the subject because it had been dealt with once and for all. We refuse to listen to any talk of it and ask no questions about it. Why? Could it be because raising the subject might show us that all our hands are not as clean as we’d perceived? Will we see that we didn’t quite make it all the way across our shadows? Could it be that we’re still criminals who hunger for colossal profits that we can’t afford or for which we simply refuse to pay? Why are we so afraid of the “S” word?
Slavery in Mauritania and Sudan
Thomas Clarkson, Henry Brougham, William Wilberforce, Thomas Fowell Buxton and friends deserve their praises for having achieved the impossible. They are the proof we need to help maintain our faith in the human race. However, were their efforts enough? Let’s take a look at modern day Mauritania and other North African countries like Sudan. It is curious that one is able to find an article in the Encyclopedia Britannica today, titled: Slavery in The 21 century. Slavery has after all been abolished. The article reports that white Arab masters, (Bedeins), who find physical work abominable, still hold black African slaves (Haratines) as property (Today!). The Haratine mothers do not own their children. Over there, slaves are sold and bought like any other commodity. They are given as wedding gifts, and or traded for camels, trucks and guns.
The situation in Sudan is quite similar. The black slave trade has been reinitiated as a result of a civil-religious conflict between Arab Muslims in the north and African peoples in the south, who are predominantly Christians.
Slavery in Brazil
We still maintain that slavery has been abolished, when there are 40,000 Brazilians working for no real wages. According to a report by CNN’s Arthur Brice (January 09, 2009), those 40,000 Brazilians are not free to leave the distant work camps where they live. Any real worker is free to leave the organization for which he works even when he is under the mild restrictions of a contract. Why then is it being reported that those men are unable to leave?
United Nation’s definition of Slavery
According to Article 1 of the UN Slavery Convention (1926), slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised. In our world where slavery is a thing of the past, we can still hear the following stories:
Dylan a 17 year old girl who was forced into prostitution at the age of 12 told BBC the following: “I was locked in a cage with others underneath the brothel for entire days. I was only ever allowed out when a client came…. There were lots of other boys and girls at the brothel. I overheard two pimps bargaining and heard one of them say my price was $150 (£78)."
In another article featured in the BBC News, Kanchipuram southern India: "Bonded to the sari loom," reported by Damian Grammaticas (March 29, 2007), a young boy (Ashok Kumar), describes his life as a debt slave. Grammaticas reported the following: “When Ashok's mother died, his father left home. The boy was abandoned with his grandmother. Desperate for money she took £12 ($25) from a loom owner and, in return, sold the boy's freedom. Ashok is now bonded, forced to do this one job. He is not free to leave unless the debt is repaid. And he is paid just 15p (30 US cents) a day, so there is little hope he will ever do that.”
ILO report on slavery
The ILO reports that 9.5 million of the 12 million victims of forced labor (enslavement) today are scattered across the Asian Pacific. Of this figure, 8.1 million are trapped in forced labor by means other than trafficking, principally through debt bondage. There are humans over there in Myanmar, which are even victims of state-imposed forced labor.
The new face of slavery
We ask: “What’s all this preposterous talk about something that has been abolished?” Has this thing really long been abolished? The gigantic monster, known as slavery is nowhere near extinction. It went into hiding and has mutated into something perhaps just as horrible, as it used to be, if not more.
Slavery has taken on a new plumage. The feathers are now colored with child labor and the sale of children, with domestic and migrant workers, with servile marriages, with trafficking in persons, with debt bondages and lots of forced labor. It is modern and blends so well in our societies that we’re not able to talk about it without giving rise to some controversy. Even those of us who would normally have been the first advocates against human enslavement, are silent for we have been tricked by the new faces of slavery. The definition is however, the same, making it possible for us to differentiate between free individuals (persons without masters) and individuals who are owned as is the case in Brazil and others countries like Mauritania. Our world should not be allowed to become the breeding ground of destructive creatures like slavery.
According to the UN’s Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, "the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, n. 226 (1956) institutions and practices, such as debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage, exploitation of children, should be abolished, whether or not covered by the definition of slavery contained in article 1 of the Slavery Convention" (1926). So fellow humans, will we allow history to repeat itself? Can we really afford to stand by and watch children like Dylan and Ashok cry for their freedom?
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