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.

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.

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

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

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.

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)