Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Modern Slavery.

Google is a site with a lot of people viewing it daily. So, it would only make sense that one would go to google to get some information. And that is just what I did. I went to www.google.com and typed in the keyword 'slavery' and hit go. There were about 26,300,000 hits. One of the first ones is "The 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade". But in reality, that is not true. Far from true, actually. 2008 is not the 200 year anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade. It was the date slavery was dealt a blow, but it recovered well.

Modern slavery is a lot different than the slavery that people think of when you say "slavery". The old slavery was about keeping the slaves for generations. New slavery? The girls in brothels are disposable. If they gets HIV/AIDS? They're out. They're pregnant? They get an abortion - and in these third world countries, that is as good as killing the mother anyways. No longer are the slave auctions ocean side platforms lined with suffering slaves, wincing under their masters whips. Now, the slaves parade in high heels a few sizes too big, wincing behind their makeup.


"No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." - The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Slavery is illegal in every country in the world, yet it exists in nearly every country. Everyone knows what slavery is, but no one KNOWS what's going on today. Governments and businesses are more likely to suffer penalty for burning a Miley Cyrus cd than for abusing these girls in the brothels. A few years ago, a trade organization sued the UN for not allowing some meat to be shipped into England because it had some steroids in it. This is the mindset : block the free movement of dead cows between countries and be penalized; buy and sell live girls across borders? No one cares.


It's all about the profits and if they are affecting the government. The presence of a few hundred Ukrainian girls in Japanese brothels doesn't affect the balance of profits, so the govement isn't interested in doing anything about it. The police and government in Thailand are ambivalent about the sex trade and not interested in making slaveholders comply to the laws. In the USA and Europe, the police fight the organized crime. In Thailand, the police are the organized crime. The governments turn a blind eye, cooperate with slaveholders, and even enslave people themselves. Some officials profit from bribes not to tell about the brothels, others frequently use the brothels.


If we cannot choose to set these slaves free, how can we say that we are free?

0 comments: