continued . . . Worldwide, by iAbolish
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As many as thirty million people are enslaved today worldwide, forced to work for no pay under the threat of violence. Contemporary slavery includes forced labor, debt bondage, forced prostitution, and chattel slavery. Cases of human bondage exist around the world, including in developed countries. Here are some facts on modern-day slavery around the word today:
The 1927 Slavery Convention outlawed slavery worldwide. Article 2 states that the members will take the necessary steps "to bring about, progressively and as soon as possible, the complete abolition of slavery in all its forms." Slavery is defined as forced labor without pay under the threat of violence.
Though the legal argument against slavery has been won, slavery persists and even thrives in some parts of the world. By a conservative estimate, 27 million people are enslaved today worldwide- more than at any time in history.
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Even though women are entering the paid workforce in increasing numbers, they risk dismissal should they become pregnant and generally enjoy less overall income and job security than men. According to the World Bank, in developed countries, women earn 77 cents for every dollar men earn, and in developing countries, 73 cents.
— UNFPA State of World Population Report 2005 |
The classic form of chattel slavery—in which slaveholders maintain ownership no longer through legalities but through the use of violence-persists to this day in a few countries. In Sudan, a radical ruling regime has revived a racially-based slave trade, arming militia forces to raid civilian villages for slaves. In Mauritania, slave raids 800 years ago began a system of chattel slavery that continues to this day, with Arab-Berber masters holding as many as one million black Africans as inheritable property.
The most common form of slavery is debt bondage, in which a human being becomes collateral against a loan. With a massive population boom in regions of staggering poverty, some families have nothing to pledge for a loan but their own labor. With inflated interest rates, debts are often inherited, ensnaring generations. 15-20 million slaves are in debt bondage in Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan.
Another common form of slavery is forced labor, where individuals are lured by the promise of a good job and instead find themselves enslaved. Migrant workers are particularly vulnerable, and small organized-crime rings fuel a booming international trade in human beings. Trafficking often flows from developing nations to the West. For instance, the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimates that 50,000 women and children are trafficked into the US each year as slaves.
A form of slavery most common in South Asia is sex slavery, where girls are forced into prostitution by their own husbands, fathers and brothers to earn money for the men in the family to pay back local-money lenders. Others are lured by offers of good jobs and then beaten and forced to work in brothels.
Slave labor produces goods we use every day. Examples include sugar from the Dominican Republic, chocolate from the Ivory Coast, paper clips from China, carpets from Nepal and cigarettes from India.
Slavery occurs in every continent in the world except Antarctica. A few selected hotspots include:
- Albania: Teenage girls are tricked into sex slavery and trafficked by organized crime rings.
- Brazil: Lured into the rainforest, families burn trees into charcoal at gunpoint.
- Burma: The ruling military junta enslaves its own people to build infrastructure projects, some benefiting US corporations.
- Dominican Republic: Haitians are rounded up at random, taken across the border, and forced to cut cane in sugar plantations.
- Ghana: Families repent for sins by giving daughters as slaves to fetish priests.
- India: Children are trapped in debt bondage rolling cigarettes 14 hours a day.
- Ivory Coast: Child slaves are forced to work on cocoa plantations.
- Mauritania: Arab-Berbers buy and sell black Africans as inheritable property.
- Pakistan: Children with nimble fingers are forced to weave carpets in looms.
- Sudan: Arab militias from the North take Southern Sudanese women and children in slave raids.
- Thailand: Women and children become sex slaves for tourists.
- United Arab Emirates: Bangladeshi boys are transported and exploited as jockeys for camel racing.
- United States of America: The CIA estimates that 50,000 people are trafficked as sex slaves, domestics, garment and agricultural slaves.
— Reprinted from www.iAbolish.com, the Anti-Slavery Portal, which links activists, human rights organizations and slave survivors across the globe. The portal is run by the American Anti-Slavery Group (AASG), which has a unique historic mission: it is the only human rights organization in the United States dedicated solely to abolishing modern-day slavery worldwide. That mission is also incomparably urgent because contemporary slavery in Africa is a central component of a policy of physical and cultural genocide. In fact, in 1994, it was AASG's New York Times op-ed that broke the silence on slavery in Sudan and Mauritania. Based in Boston, MA, the historical center of the American abolitionist movement, AASG works ceaselessly through every available means- building public awareness, leading advocacy campaigns, conducting research, bartering for the freedom of those in chains, empowering survivors to tell their stories and transform hearts and minds-to liberate the millions of people trapped in the virtually indescribable and unimaginable degradation and horror of bondage.
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