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The Forum > Article Comments > Slavery - the sadistic trade > Comments

Slavery - the sadistic trade : Comments

By Harry Throssell, published 27/4/2007

Officially slavery ended in Britain 200 years ago but now, ironically, there are more slaves worldwide than at any time in history.

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Yesterday I was looking at a large imported rug hanging in a shop window. The detail was astonishing. Thanks to a number of features in the media, I was aware enough to wonder if that rug had been weaved by a 12-year old child chained to the weaving machine.

Thanks Harry for your article.
Posted by healthwatcher, Friday, 27 April 2007 9:55:20 AM
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humans are a commodity like any other, and when there are too many they have little value. every one would prefer to work for a 'living' wage, but if none is available, they accept or are forced into slavery. it's better than starvation.

it's easy to be against slavery, but if you can't think of a way to provide work for people who have nothing, if you can't think of a way to prevent corporations from moving their labor jobs to lands without law, if you enjoy the benefits of globalization without demanding to know the consequences, then you're not against slavery all that much.
Posted by DEMOS, Friday, 27 April 2007 12:13:52 PM
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You may be interested in another recent text about modern day slavery. Some details below with more info at
http://www.equippingthechurch.co.uk/product_info.php?products_id=3762
Slavery Now - and Then
An investigation into modern slavery by the leading human rights authorities of our time in the context of the transatlantic slave trade.
Contributors include:
David Alton - Kevin Bales - Kate Blewett - Steve Chalke - Caroline Cox - Shay Cullen - Joseph D'Souza - Joel Edwards - Mike Kaye - Michele Lombardo - Anita Roddick - Benedict Rogers - Tony Warner - Brian Woods
Posted by Dee Dicen Hunt, Friday, 27 April 2007 2:06:26 PM
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And let’s not forget (or is it best we forget?) the national scene where slavery was used extensively with Indigenous people, wages stolen, children stolen to work as slaves all contributed to creating the wealth that everyone enjoys - bar those who paid most for it.

But it was never called slavery here; it was [insidiously] called 'protection'.

See: Stolen Wages information here: http://www.aiatsis.gov.au/library/subject_guides__bibliographies/stolen_wages
Posted by Rainier, Friday, 27 April 2007 3:25:45 PM
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Rainier

Now that you mention it, would you call child marriage to elders slavery, or is that different somehow?
Posted by Cornflower, Friday, 27 April 2007 7:57:11 PM
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Not not really. I thought that someone like you who is obviously the offspring of your mother and her brother (do you call him Dad or Uncle?) would know about these matters?
Posted by Rainier, Friday, 27 April 2007 9:02:15 PM
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And we in the Western world enjoy all the fruits of that slave labour. WE know all the cheap clothes and everything else we buy are made by global companies exploiting people in third world countries but we are always down at the shops stuffing as much of it as we can into our trollies and shopping bags. This is the true nature of mankind to look the other way if you are benefiting greatly from something. Even the upstanding religious British settlers who werent averse to growing wealthy off the exploited labour of the aborigines.

The only thing we can do is arm to the teeth and make sure we are never in a position of weakness to be exploited by our fellow humans. That means defending our democratic and western values to the death.
Posted by sharkfin, Friday, 27 April 2007 9:39:20 PM
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We've still got a long way to go.

I thought I mention one area of the global slave trade that the authors missed. That is of global sex slavery. The CIA estimates that up to 50,000 women are brought to the USA against their will, each year (http://www.now.org/nnt/summer-2000/slavery.html). Sex slavery is rampant throughout Eastern Europe and South East Asia, not least because of clients from western nations to drive it.

We still have a long way to go.
Posted by ChrisC, Friday, 27 April 2007 11:30:45 PM
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We are being sold on a globalised economy and I don't think that I am the only one that is unable to comprehend how I can buy a DVD player for $50. Working conditions in China are shocking and I am still shocked after reading of the death of some chinese steel workers who had molten metal poured onto thier meeting room.

See http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200704/s1905603.htm

This was no accident, but just evident of a criminally dangerous workplace. The figures for deaths in the Chinese coal industry is horrific.

John Howard and his IR laws leave Australians open to competing with the slavelike labour of countries like this.

**

Rainier,
I agree but in many instances I think that the CDEP is just a continuation of the slave labour rates for Indigenous Australians. I know of business people who have employed people on CDEP for an indefininte period - free labour - or slave labour.

Also governments exploitation of CDEP to fund basic services in remote communities such as garbage collection, maintenance and administration are akin to slave labour. A proper job, full time at award rates would be something to aspire to, not just a forced activity
Posted by Aka, Saturday, 28 April 2007 8:24:07 AM
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While you were looking at rugs in a window thinking it was made by a 12yo slave I was looking at the 12yo. I would love to see anyone try and take that rug making job away from him/her.

To suggest slavery is even similar to percieved poor working conditions shows a lack of understanding of what slavery was and is.

As a resident in one of the poorest countries on earth I have come to realise just how little the general population understands about developing economies.

It is all about economics and money - not that I have a problem with that. The 12yo boy making the rug is doing so because his father died of aids, his younger brothers have malaria and his mother smashes rocks for a living. The money the 12yo makes goes towards his older brother going to school in the hope he will one day get a job to look after the whole family.

If you take away that boys job you take away his brothers education. It's not slavery - It's his hope for a future.

Clayton
Posted by Clayton, Saturday, 28 April 2007 6:34:38 PM
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Aka, totally agree, I worked in CDEP years ago (work for the dole) well before it became a mainstreamed program.

And the work CDEP enabled was were services every other Australian takes for granted. Many communities actually turned these programs into self sufficient businesses, but now they have been abolished.

The absence of a real economy was not because Aboriginal people did not want to engage in a self sufficient economy, but because the assets required (such as land) was held in trust by governments.

And so Stolen Wages by default continued on well after it was declared illegal and immoral.

This is the history Noel Pearson et al won't reference when they talk about 'responsibility' and a history most white Australians don't know or don't care to know or acknowledge.
Posted by Rainier, Saturday, 28 April 2007 7:05:49 PM
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THE YEAR.....630ish

Quran Chapter 23:5-6
AL-MUMENOON (THE BELIEVERS)
In the name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful

023.001
YUSUFALI: The believers must (eventually) win through,-

023.002
YUSUFALI: Those who humble themselves in their prayers;

Now... *crunch* time. a few verses further down:

023.005 YUSUFALI: Who abstain from sex,
023.006 YUSUFALI: Except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess,- for (in their case) they are free from blame,

THE YEAR.... 1990s...till now.

In Islamic lands (Sudan) where they are free to PRACTICE their faith without feeling embarrassed by Western/Christian scrutiny.

From the Article.

in the 1980s and 1990s Arabs ....AGAIN.... set about capturing Africans. Following raids on communities, young women became concubines, young boys - killers, older women - domestic servants, and older men and women were often killed. In one raid 82 men died and 282 women and children became slaves.

Yesterday, today and forever...Islam is the same (where is has freedom to flourish).

Mark 8:18 Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? (Jesus)
Posted by BOAZ_David, Sunday, 29 April 2007 9:23:25 AM
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Isaiah 3.45: Jesus said: "Gee I really hope nutters don't read the bible and then set about Christianising & terrorising”
Posted by Rainier, Sunday, 29 April 2007 10:12:15 AM
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Clayton-; "if you take away that boys job you take away his brothers education, it's not slavery it's his hope for the future."

Clayton while what you say is true and a good point, it still doesn't excuse the rich global companies for not paying people in these countries more than a pittance and giving them decent working conditions. I heard of one incidence just lately where chinese women have to work for 10hours and are not allowed to go to the toilet in that time. How they do it I dont know.

These global companies then have the hide to sell these goods in Western countries based on Western prices. Maybe if all countries in the world agreed to only let these companies charge a resonable percentage of what they pay their workers to make profits then they would pay them more to get a higher percentage profit.
Maybe the united nations could bring this about. Only there are too many powerful people in governments with their hands in the till.
Posted by sharkfin, Sunday, 29 April 2007 3:59:25 PM
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Good, emotive stuff, slavery.

I notice that the first-mentioned group in the article are the Lord's Resistance Army. A quick look around found this quote "The LRA rebels say they are fighting for the establishment of a government based on the biblical Ten Commandments" (globalsecurity.org) and "Formed in 1992... the group promotes a radical form of Christianity" (MIPT Terrorism Knowledge Base)

This, of course, doesn't stop Boaz from his customary lecture on the evils of Islam. Does he ever stop and think before he writes, I wonder?

The article - unlike Boaz - makes no judgment on the position of religion in relation to slavery.

As well it might. The "Christians" of Uganda, the "Buddhists" of Burma, the "Muslims" of Sudan have only one thing in common. They are terrorists first and foremost. Their "religion" remains in quotation marks.

To select just one of these groups in order to point out their religious leanings is mere rabble-rousing. In fact, if there is one lesson to be drawn from this article it is that every "religion" has its extremist outsiders, and what they do by definition bears no relation to the label they carry, whether Christian, Buddhist or Muslim.

It's either/or, Boaz. Either you accept that there is something inherent in Christianity that leads to the crimes of the Lord's Resistance Army, or you accept that terrorism has no roots in religion at all.

Knowing you, you will want it both ways, and tell us that it is absolutely not possible for the LRA to be Christians, but entirely typical that the Sudanese Arabs are Muslims.

One day, you will realize the sin inherent in what you are doing. I hope I'm not around when that happens, because there will indeed be weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth as the realization of the damage you have caused sinks in.

Not a pretty sight.
Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:27:55 PM
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Regarding the sex trade in Thailand and poor countries like that I often think how different it could be if the men donated all the millions and millions of dollars they put through these sexual slavery dens to set up funds to house and educate these poor little girls some as young as nine years old. Its a well known fact that when the lot of women improves in any country, that countrys quality of life goes up immensely for everybody, men and women. Whereas men are happy to let all the misery stand if it allows them sexual dominance. Of course this would be Utopia.

The only ones who come close to Utopia on this planet are those who have control over their own lives and destiny. Even then there is are all sorts of dangers to avoid in every day life that can strike down even these lucky ones without warning. Cheerful aren't I?
Posted by sharkfin, Sunday, 29 April 2007 4:38:41 PM
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"I was aware enough to wonder if that rug had been"
key word "wonder" Action taken? none.
Posted by Steel, Tuesday, 1 May 2007 12:08:05 AM
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