A Person as the Property - Speech or Presentation Example

 Slavery is the act of considering people as property in the sense that they can be sold and purchase with the ultimate need of making them to do work without pay. They are always treated as second class people without any right to exercise. Slaves too have no voices of their own, they cannot register complain about a system or object anything. Usually, there is no compensation for the work or duties done by the slaves; their masters are also not obliged by any law to advance such remuneration to them. Slavery started long time ago and villages were raided for strong and energetic people who could withstand manual duties. Today, slavery today is illegal and is abolished by many countries around the world as they consider the act barbaric and overtaken by time. The international laws and treaties including domestic laws in the individual countries consider the trade illegitimate and recognize it as abuse of human rights. Slave trade has done more harm than good ultimately, a part from denying people their rights as enshrined in the constitutions, and it has also deprived the society of able population culminating into loss of artisanship and abject poverty in the zones. Slavery in the past Slavery started long time ago with several slave dealers scattered all over the world especially in Africa. The few rich dealers in slavery organized for the capturing of able-bodied people, which were then taken to the market for purchase by the merchants. Slaves were captured in a brutal exercise that left many people maimed and killed (Toledano 77). The villages were deprived work force since there was extraction of those who could economically improve the status of the society. The slaves were then assembled in designated areas that were used as markets through which the prospective buyers met the sellers. After the purchase, slaves would be taken to diverse areas where demand was rife, for instance, others would be taken to US, Europe, Asia et cetera (Toledano 86). Slavery in Past: Middle East Middle East predominantly Arabic was also not left out in the slave trade, slavery was more pronounced in East Africa, Northern Africa, and West Asia. During this early days, most of the people in the Arab countries participated in this trade where slaves were captured sold and put under bondage. The system of capturing slaves both in the Arabic world and in the rest of the world remained more or less the same. Most of the slaves that were captured by the Middle East traders though were largely drawn from Mediterranean, Turkic, and Persians (Marmon 113). This trend also spread to other parts of the world and reached African continent as a new area for acquisition of the slaves. Following the establishment of the Omani rule in Eastern, part of Africa became a factor that accelerated slavery in the region. The sultanate that was based in Zanzibar abetted the trade and these made most of the population from the region to be taken to the Middle East as slaves. The Portuguese and the Europeans who also had interest in the same region did not welcome the establishment of the rule along the East African coast led by the Arabs. Because of the trade related issues, there arose a commercial conflict between the two dominant groups, the Portuguese and the Arabs; this led to a series of wars that emerged between the rivaling groups owing to the control of slave trade along the East coast. It is estimated that by the time the slave trade was abolished, approximately 18 million Africans were transferred to the Middle East where they were placed under bondage (Marmon 124). Some of the prominent people that stood out due to slave trade from the Middle East were Tippu Tip. He was one of the most known slave dealer who transferred million of slaves a cross the Red sea, the Sahara desert, and the Indian Ocean (Pipes). History also reports that the Arabs also enslaved some of the Europeans and about 1 million in relation to this were captured and placed under bondage in the Arab world. With the Arab’s slave trade lasting nearly a millennium, many exchanges took place not only in terms of the population transfer, but also in terms of the transfer of goods and products from the different areas the Arabs came from. Historical features were also left as landmarks, Fort Jesus in the East Africa remains an example as well as a new culture was also brought into place, the Swahili culture (Pipes). Slavery in the Middle East in Modern Day It will be recognized that open slavery was abolished in the 1880s and pronounced illegal and intolerable, slave trade then went under the ground during the transition with the trade taking silent pattern until it was completely eradicated with no more transfer of population from one place to the other (Jackie). Slavery in the Middle East has thus transformed in a way that it takes place without the public awareness. Most of those under slavery in the Middle East in the modern society have been recruited formally with a clear role to play from different parts of the developing world. Once the prospective employees have reached the various places in the Middle East, they found the situation different given the slavery treatment; no pay, no freedom and no say. This has been taking place for a long time since the conventional slave trade was abolished and no slaves are transported across the red sea to the Middle East. Prospective employees are enticed with hefty wages and salaries in the Middle East countries, which finally turn to be a hidden covert of slavery deals (Jackie). In conclusion, slavery remains one of the trade that dislocated people arbitrarily characterized with the separation of families and human suffering. It deprived the people off their fundamental rights and freedoms, it is also then sad to find that still, in some places, slavery is practiced in disguise. The international community should thus institute policies that recognize slavery in the modern society and enact punitive legal punishment on those who will be found guilty of the offence. The world should be freed from this illegitimate act and population be cushioned from it in whatever way possible. Works Cited Jackie, Rose. "Maids in the Middle East: Little better than slavery | The Economist." The Economist - World News, Politics, Economics, Business & Finance. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2013. . Pipes, Daniel. "Slavery in the Middle East: Middle East Forum." Middle East Forum. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Mar. 2013. . Marmon, Shaun. Slavery in Islamic Middle East. Princeton, N.J.: Markus Weiner; 2010. Print. Toledano, Ehud R. Slavery and abolition in the Ottoman Middle East. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2007. Print. Read More