chapter 2 - Stiftung "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft"

More documents

Recommendations

Info

FROM ABOLITION TO ERADICTION: SLAVERY IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY identifies debt bondage as a slavery-like practice. 3 Debt bondage is a means of coercion whereby individuals take on a loan which they must pay off with their labor, which generally is compensated well below its market value. It is the most common form of slavery in the world today. Debt bondage is endemic across South Asia despite being illegal in all of countries of the region. It is prevalent in agriculture, gem polishing, cigarette manufacturing, mines and quarries, the sex industry and garment making. For visitors to the region, debt bondage is most visible in the brick kilns at the outskirts of most South Asian towns and cities. These are predominantly staffed by people who have been enslaved by debt bondage. Those who are enslaved are chronically poor. Yet chronic poverty alone is not sufficient to render people into slavery. In Pakistan, for example, 74 percent of the population survives on less than 2 US dollars per day. Not all of these people are enslaved. The Indian anti-slavery organization Centre for Education and Communication notes that those who are enslaved in debt bondage are those “with nothing to sell but themselves.” The landless population is therefore particularly at risk. Example 1: The Descent into Bondage “After my sister got sick, we took her to the hospital, but the doctor said we had to pay more money, so my parents bonded me for 1,700 rupees ($33). I was seven or eight years old… . I only went home once a week. I slept in the factory with two or three other children. We prepared our food there and slept in the space between the machines. The owner provided the rice and cut it from our wages – he would deduct the price. We cooked the rice ourselves. We worked twelve hours a day with one hour for rest. If I made a mistake – if I cut the thread – he would beat me.” 4 Another crucial factor is the issue of social or minority status. For example, in South Asia, 90 percent of slaves are from scheduled castes, especially the Dalit; in India, many slaves are from the Muslim minority population. 5 These minority groups are subject to widespread and institutionalized structures of prejudice, discrimination and social exclusion. The broad popular support for this discrimination ensures that slavery remains both informally sanctioned and socially tolerated. Even governments collude in tolerating the enslavement of the vulnerable by failing to enforce their own laws or protect their own citizens. For example, India criminalized bonded labor as a result of political pressure from the indigenous protest movement in 1976. Yet today India still has the largest number of bonded laborers in the world. This problem is exacerbated by the recent trend toward lax labor protection in the formal economy and the ongoing failure to address the issue of landlessness across the region. Trafficking Trafficking refers to the movement of people from one place to another for the purpose of forced labor and sexual exploitation. This is the most common form of slavery in Europe today, and generally affects migrants. Migrants are vulnerable for a variety of reasons, including their lack of support networks, the tendency of 3 For a discussion of bonded labor, see Krishna Prasad Upadhyaya, Poverty, Discrimination and Slavery: The Reality of Bonded Labour in India, Nepal and Pakistan (London, 2008). 4 Human Rights Watch, Small Change, 15:2 (2003): 26. 5 The caste system makes distinctions between different sections of society by dividing communities into rigid social groups, determined by birth and occupation. In India the caste system has existed for more than 3000 years and eventually became formalized into four distinct classes. Beneath the four main castes is a fifth group, the Dalits, or so-called untouchables, known in Indian law as scheduled castes. They literally have no caste. Discriminatory, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment has been justified on the basis of caste. More than 260 million people worldwide continue to suffer under what is often a hidden apartheid of segregation, exclusion, modern day slavery and other extreme forms of discrimination, exploitation and violence. See the Dalit Solidarity Network, accessed on Oct. 29, 2009 from www.dsnuk.org. Stiftung EVZ HUMAN RIGHTS AND HISTORY: A CHALLENGE FOR EDUCATION 115
Aidan McQuade some governments to tie immigration status to employment, and the often high level of prejudice against migrants in many countries of destination. This prejudice encourages toleration for this form of enslavement, similar to the way in which bonded labor is tolerated in South Asia. Debt bondage is often used to coerce people who are trafficked for labor or sexual exploitation. For example, people from Eastern Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia may be promised a good job in Western Europe, and encouraged to take out a loan to pay for travel. But once they arrive, they often discover that the promised job does not exist. To pay off the loan, they are then expected to submit to forced labor. While media attention tends to focus on trafficking for sexual exploitation, trafficking also affects thousands of people who are tricked or coerced into forced domestic servitude or forced labor in agriculture, food processing, catering, construction, and cleaning services. The ILO estimates that 2.4 million people are trafficked across the world each year in a trade they estimate as worth some 32 billion US dollars. According to ILO estimates, some 270,000 people are trafficked into industrialized countries in Europe and North America each year; this trade alone is worth 15.5 billion US dollars. In blunt business terms, human trafficking to industrialized countries comprises just over 10 percent of their trade volume, but is worth almost half the global value. Trafficking is also a significant feature of many forms of slavery, including debt bondage in South Asia (see Box 2). Example 2: Baura’s Story Baura, from Uttar Pradesh in India, was 35 years old when he was released from bonded labor. The total population of his village is 400, and the entire population belongs to the Chamar caste, which is a scheduled caste. Baura was a bonded laborer in a stone quarry leased by Navneet Singh, a prominent local landlord belonging to the higher-caste Rajput (Thakur) community. Baura was bonded for a period of 7 years. Prior to this, he was bonded to another quarry leased by Chandan Mishra, a Brahmin landlord. In other words, Baura had been sold from one employer to another. The amount which Baura owed Chandan Mishra was paid as a lump sum by Navneet Singh. Since Baura was unable to repay the bonded debt of 1,200 rupees (approximately $25), he had to continue to work as a bonded laborer for Navneet Singh. Baura’s daily wage was fixed at 20 rupees, but he never received it. He received no holidays and his labor rights were ignored. 6 The case of Baura demonstrates that trafficking need not be transnational. Nor is it necessarily associated with immigration crime, as is often assumed by the media. Some people who are trafficked internationally enter their country of destination illegally. However, research conducted by Anti-Slavery International in 2006 demonstrated that the majority of people trafficked to the United Kingdom enter legally as European nationals or on a visitor’s visa. Often the traffickers force the migrants to give up their legal entry status in order to use the threat of denunciation and deportation to increase their control. These threats are another form of coercion that exploits the human capacity for hope of a better life. 6 Recorded in Uttar Pradesh, 2005. From the Centre for Education and Communication (CEC), Analysing the Effectiveness of Eradication Programmes on Bonded Labour: Uttar Pradesh (Delhi, 2005): 25. 116 Stiftung EVZ HUMAN RIGHTS AND HISTORY: A CHALLENGE FOR EDUCATION
Page 1 and 2: RESPONSES TO THE EXPERIENCE OF INJU
Page 3 and 4: Heiner Bielefeldt The principle of
Page 5 and 6: Heiner Bielefeldt little sensitivit
Page 7 and 8: Heiner Bielefeldt An Ongoing Projec
Page 9 and 10: Otto Böhm FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION AS
Page 11 and 12: Otto Böhm These strict guidelines
Page 13 and 14: Otto Böhm Michael Kohlstruck has u
Page 15 and 16: Otto Böhm “State Speech - Hate S
Page 17 and 18: Otto Böhm Menasse noted, the court
Page 19 and 20: Agnès Callamard ment of every man.
Page 21 and 22: Agnès Callamard Fundamental reform
Page 23 and 24: Agnès Callamard laws can be used t
Page 25 and 26: Agnès Callamard to make a positive
Page 27 and 28: Patrice G. Poutrus The 1953 Asylum
Page 29 and 30: Patrice G. Poutrus to asylum was hi
Page 31 and 32: Patrice G. Poutrus nations were adm
Page 33: Aidan McQuade FROM ABOLITION TO ERA
Page 37 and 38: Aidan McQuade hoods, impoverishment
Page 39 and 40: Aidan McQuade invisibility of force
Page 41 and 42: Aidan McQuade treatment in the econ
Page 43 and 44: Aidan McQuade nary people from anci
Page 45 and 46: Günter Saathoff persons. Fritz Sau
Page 47 and 48: Günter Saathoff For several decade

chapter 2 - Stiftung "Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft"

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?