Slavery in the 21st Century - Report Example

Capitalism itself is a system that enslaves human beings. For capitalism sees and treats everything as objects or commodities. Karl Marx’s famous theory of alienation comes from this aspect of the capitalism. The product in a pre capitalist society was not a commodity; it was a product of creation by the workman. But when the society starts producing surplus, there emerges a class which gets free of its involvement in the process of production. They don’t labor, but controls labor and lives by their control over the labor and means of production. This class is the capitalist class, and the society this class controls is the capitalist society. In such a society the workers who produce get reduced to consumers. As the market forces take over the commodities, the workers get alienated completely from what they have produced. The worker first gets alienated from the products he produces as it is owned by the capitalist who only has the right to sell it. The worker has no control over the process of production too. These two aspects of alienation make the worker a mere consumer, which in turn make him alienated from other human beings around. Thus in capitalist societies, the majority of the people are not creators. They are just consumers and slaves of commodity fetishism. As long as the process of production in the society remains capitalist, the slavery of human beings is a sure economic state. The globalization of capitalism as a neo liberal project has made this slavish social state more acute and it is this economic factor which is responsible for the slavery in various forms in the contemporary society. NEO LIBERALISM: Unless one looks at the issue in this perspective one will end up wondering why the slavery is still there in a society which claims itself modern, more civilized and technologically very advanced. There are laws passed to abolish slavery way back in 1807—more than two hundred years ago. Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807 was meant to stop the slave trade in British colonies. The act tried to prevent the transportation of slaves through the Atlantic. It was in the same year in March 1807 that U S President Thomas Jefferson signed the bill that proclaimed the slave trade illegal. But even after two hundred years of existence of anti slavery laws and their enforcement, slavery and forced / bonded labor remain a social concern of high priority. According to Anti- Slavery International 12 m people live as slaves today (Kaye, 2005, as quoted by Christien van Den Anker in “Global ethics and Contemporary Slavery”) Benjamin skinner defines a slave as “A human being forced to work through fraud or threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence”. (“A World Enslaved”) He is made to work, and just allowed to eat and sleep. It is the neo liberal politics and its economic policies that have made a very large section of people impoverished globally. These impoverished segments of population are vulnerable to any extreme of exploitation and are dependent on the capitalists for survival. The neo liberal market forces on the other hand demand cheap labor and high profits. Forced labor coupled with human rights violations achieves this neo-liberal economic goal. ECONOMICS OF MIGRATION: Complex migration laws and the capitalist lobbies together create fertile ground for slavery in the modern times. For example in the United States of America there is a strong corporate lobby that wants the illegal emigrants from Latin America and other countries, to stay because they help these capitalists to make higher profits with meager wages and no privileges due to the laborers. The Native Americans and the labor advocates, decry the fact that these illegal immigrants are responsible for depressing the wages. The other side of the fact is that in the American work force, these illegal migrants fill up the jobs which the Native Americans refuse to take up, because these jobs are unpleasant and physically demanding with bad working conditions, especially in agriculture, construction and service industries. The Pew Hispanic Centre estimates that in 2001 workers with out legal documents comprised 58% of work force in agriculture, 23.8 % in private house hold services 16.6% in business services 9.1% in restaurants and 6.4 % in construction in United States. Most of these illegal immigrants are not educated enough to demand high wages .According to the reports of the Centre for Immigration Studies (CIS) nearly two thirds of the illegal immigrants have not earned a high school diploma., compared to 85 percent of the American population. Because of lack of education and awareness of their rights these immigrants can be employed without vacation pay or health coverage. Thus the corporate lobby prefers these illegal immigrants, as they help them amass more profit. According to some economists, without out the illegal immigrants there will be a shrinking in the work force of the United States by 3 to 4 percentages which will affect the overall economic growth rate adversely. In 2004 there was a crackdown on illegal work forces in Western United States. This led to the rotting of the lettuce crops in the field as the farmers couldn’t hire enough workers to pick the lettuce crops .The lose due to this was estimated to be $1Billion. It is these economic reasons that lead to the dichotomy of the federal Govt. going for guest worker programs while the States are strengthening the boundary patrol to stop the illegal migration. The political leadership is trying to balance between the corporate needs and demands and the ever growing general popular feelings against the immigrants. According to International Labor organization over 12 m people working as forced labor are delivering profits over US $ 44 Billion. Luis Alberto Urrea in his book The Devil’s Highway tells us the cruel way the people get enslaved in United States, and how cruelly they are smuggled out of their country. The title of the book has reference to the oldest track to cross over to the United States from the Mexican boarder. This track goes through the Arizona desert, and is one of the most inhospitable places for humans. The temperature here is almost always above hundred degrees. A man needs minimum of two gallons of water to survive here for a day. Luis Alberto Urrea tells a real story of 26 people who get lost in this track while attempting to cross over to the United States illegally in May 2001. Only twelve of them survived. The story is painful and raises issues of life in poverty and human rights. These are people caught in between two governments and their contradictory policies leading them into enslavement for life. The Mexican Govt. is encouraging or at least is not stopping the illegal migration. The American Govt. is against immigration, but is not able to stop it fully for economic reasons. Discrimination on the grounds of race and ethnicity complicate the contemporary forms of slavery. For example in the United States the debate by today’s nativists has a racial tone. The nativists today, like the White-power Movement have a Nazi outlook. This movement has a trademark brown Nazi uniform with swastika arm band. These movements look at the immigrants as criminals, especially the illegal migrants. In States like Pennsylvania where the Hispanic population is increasing, these white Nazi organizations are gaining more ground. This is leading to social tensions too. STATE AS THE VILLAIN: This is not a situation particular to the United States. The same is the conditions of the migratory workers in Thailand .They are migrants from poorer neighboring countries like Burma, Laos and Cambodia, which are what Latin America is to the United States. Like the Immigrant Latinos in United States these immigrant workers too get employed in construction, agriculture, factory and domestic industries, with lesser wages and worse working conditions. To quote Piya Pangsapa “ One investigation revealed that a common living arrangement has 30 to 50 workers sleeping in one room and sharing one toilet in rundown , poorly ventilated buildings with inadequate supplies of running water and clean drinking water. (Hveem, 2004, as quoted by Pia Pangsapa in “Enslavement in Thailand: Southeast Asia as a Microcosm of 21st Century Slavery.”) In fishing industry migrant workers are forced to spend weeks together in sea. The factory workers are forced to work for 70 to 100 hours a week. Factories look like prisons with electric or barbed wires fencing them with locked up huge gates. These workers are forced to rent factory dormitories where the living conditions are really pathetic. These people get enslaved between the lack of legal status in the labor importing country and the poor economic conditions in the labor exporting country. In between there are smugglers and traffickers who exploit these economic conditions and force these workers into bonded labor. In both cases, Latinos in United States and other Asians in Thailand, there is similarities in the attitudes of the Home Govt. and the host Govt. In the case of Mexicans who migrate to the United States to be enslaved as illegal migrants, the Mexican Govt. never tries to stop the illegal migration through their border. The Mexican Govt. is even accused of encouraging illegal migration. In countries like Myanmar (formerly Burma) it’s the brutalities of the army of the home country which is forcing people to flee their countries to get enslaved in Thailand. Thus here not only the economic situations but also the political climate is enforcing migration and slavery. As in the United States, in Thailand too there is a capitalist lobby which is encouraging illegal migration so that they get cheap labor at their disposal which helps them to make huge profits. Thai Govt., like the American Govt. succumbs to the pressure of these capitalists and keeps a blind eye to the bitter plight of the enslaved immigrant workers in the name of national development. Thai Govt. refuses to give these migrants permanent citizenship. The temporary citizen status makes these migrant workers more vulnerable to the exploitation of the capitalists because the national labor laws become automatically not applicable to them. Female migrants are often deported back home if they get pregnant because pregnancy is considered as a “health risk”! Thus the role of the State, whether it be in the United States or in Thailand, in perpetuating the slavery is a point to be taken note of seriously. GENDER DISCRIMINATION: Gender discrimination is another factor that leads to contemporary slavery. “Together, poverty and gender inequality are strong determinants of the propensity to migrate, the type of migration and the consequences of migration to women” (Boyd 2006 as quoted by Christien Van Den Anker in “global Ethics and contemporary slavery.”) The case of women in poor house holds is double enslavement. They are slaves in their own house holds. In addition to this economic slavery they suffer domestic violence too. To escape this double edged menace they try to migrate dreaming of a life where they are able to stand on their own legs. But migration, instead of empowering them as women and human beings ends up enslaving them further, that too in a foreign country. Abuse during the migratory process by the trafficking agents is more against the women than against men because they are more vulnerable. In the host country too, the type of work and pay offered for migratory women are all gender biased and discriminatory too. There are nearly 10000 women migrants working in house holds in Thai land. Majority of them are from Myanmar. They are assaulted daily not only verbally but also sexually by the masters of the house holds. They work seven day a week, for 14 to 16 hours a day. They get a monthly pay ranging between US $12-50. In addition to these women, hundreds of other women are trafficked to Thailand to work in brothels. According to Benjamin Skinner, “In South Asia, which has the highest concentration of slaves on the planet, nearly 10 million languishes in bondage.” (A World Enslaved). Gender inequality and poverty together make available child slaves from countries like Haiti to United States and other rich countries. To quote Benjamin skinner “The total number of Haitian children in bondage in their own country stands at 300,000……Forced, unpaid, they work in captivity from before dawn until night…….. Formal and informal traffickers lure these children from desperately impoverished rural parents with promises of free schooling and better life.” (A World Enslaved) According to him, traveling 600 miles from United States one can buy a boy or girl from Haiti just for US $ 50, as a life time property. If it is a girl one can use her for anything one wants to. ILLITERACY: Total illiteracy is another root cause of modern slavery as seen in villages of India. According to Benjamin skinner In the North Indian State of Utter Pradesh, there are villages were every single man, woman or child is a slave. They are bonded laborers working off debts which having started as a meager amount had grown into a huge amount with the interest of over 100 percent annually. And these poor people work for generations to get off this ancestral debt! There are laws that ban the bonded labor. But these people are so illiterate that they are not aware of the existence of these laws. There were great efforts by voluntary organizations to free these people from this life long bondage. But the experience shows that they cannot be freed unless they themselves wish to get freed. BEYOND THE STATE: Thus the State turns out to be the villain in general when one goes into the causes of the contemporary slavery. There are laws meant to prevent this human tragedy, but they are not enforced. The neo liberal policies of the governments help the capitalists in different countries to exploit the enslaved laborers. Gender discrimination, which again is a social menace, poverty, illiteracy and unemployment are other root causes of the modern slavery. All these issues can be addressed effectively only if there is State intervention with genuine political will. Without waiting for the State to intervene, voluntary actions against slavery should get initiated. The first step in this regard is to go for better research and data. As Patrick Belser, points out “First there is a need to create stronger partnerships with the academic community, social partners and civil society to increase qualitative and quantitative research. Of all the so called labor standards, forced labor is the least studied.” (“Building a Global Alliance against Forced Labor”) This research should lead into a global alliance against contemporary slavery. Through organizations like International Labor Organization, there should be continuous propaganda world over against forced and bonded labor. International Organization for Migration coming under the United Nations, International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank all can play crucial and critical role in this propaganda to create awareness among governments and the people. At the same time efforts should be there to root out the basic reasons that lead to the slavery like gender discrimination, poverty, illiteracy at al. ============================ Sources Cited: 1) Belser Patrick, “ building a Global Alliance against Forced Labor” 2) Boyd, M. (2006) “ Women in International Migration: Context of Exit and Entry for Empowerment and exploitation” paper presented at the high level panel on The Gender Dimension of International Migration, United Nations Commission on the Status of Women , 2 March , New York. Http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw50/statements/csw, quoted by Christien Van Den Anker in “global Ethics and contemporary slavery.” 3) Hveem, 2004. “ Hidden Exploitation: Burmese Migrants in Thai Garment Factories : Hidden Subcontracting by Tommy Hilfiger Corporation and Other Brands , Mae Sot Thailand (April) Norwegian Church Aid. , quoted by Pia Pangsapa in “ Enslavement in Thailand : Southeast Asia as a Microcosm of 21st Century Slavery 4) Kaye, M. (2005) “1807-2007: Over 200 Years of Campaigning Against Slavery.” London: Anti Slavery International, as quoted by Chrstien Van Den Anker in “Global Ethics and Contemporary Slavery”. 5) Skinner Benjamin, E. “A world Enslaved.” foreign Policy (March / April) 2008. Http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story Read More