Category: Slavery

Seafood Slavery

PrawnsIt is so easy to pop into a supermarket and buy a packet of prawns, eat a pre-cooked seafood pie, or enjoy a pawn cocktail at a favourite restaurant. Have we ever stopped to wonder, how once a luxury item, is now common-place? Have we ever wondered why the price is so low?

The hard facts are that there can be abuse of workers, injustice and slavery at every stage in the process: from the women and children who catch the baby prawns (fry), the prawn farmers, the depots, the packers, and transport to your supermarket. The cheapest prawns come from Thailand, Bangladesh and other Asian countries. This is no accident, as wages are least in these countries, and exploitation and slavery is rampant, though largely hidden.

The details that follow are horrific but do not underestimate the consumer power.
Continue reading “Seafood Slavery”

Where does injustice come from ?

inequalityI have been writing about some of the injustices I see in the world and aim to campaign to reduce it’s impact. Part of the answer is to have stronger laws and stronger law enforcement to eliminate them. Another part of the answer is to make people aware so that injustice becomes unacceptable. But what is the root cause of injustice? There is no avoiding the fact that we are dealing with human nature at the deepest level.

Continue reading “Where does injustice come from ?”

Slavery in 21st Century Britain

Slavery in BritainThere are 27 Million slaves throughout the world. But before we, in Britain, point the finger we must ask why we tolerate 10,000 or more slaves in the United Kingdom today. We need stronger laws to rank human trafficking alongside kidnapping and murder. We also need more vigilance on the part of the police, officials, social workers and the public as a whole to spot the signs of workers in conditions of restricted liberty.

Continue reading “Slavery in 21st Century Britain”

34 Slaves work for me!

ChainsIf I told you that I have 34 slaves working for me, you would be rightly shocked. “What a hypocrite”, you might well say, “Fancy writing all those blogs about justice and compassion and yet using slave labour to support his life-style!”.

I have just typed in some personal deals into a survey by slaveryfootprint.org. The computer makes some assumptions on the products I buy and came up with an astonishing figure of 34 slaves being involved in the manufacture. Christine and I are a semi-retired couple, living in an average house, sharing a car, living on an around average UK Income. With different parameters you may find that you ’employ’ 100+ slaves.

Continue reading “34 Slaves work for me!”

Unthinkable

Unthinkable by Kris Hollington

I recently wrote an article of the broken law enforcement systems in many developing countries and how the poorest members of society suffer violence and are effectively outside of the law. An apology is in order.

I am about two-thirds of my way through a horrific book which outlines the problems of sexual exploitation of children in the United Kingdom and how the legal system seems to bring so few of the exploiters to justice.

UNTHINKABLE – by Kris Hollington

The shocking scandal of the UK sex traffickers

This is not a book review as such, though I have provided a Kindle link to the book. It is available to download in the UK for £1.49. I just want to highlight some of the issues raised by the book.

Continue reading “Unthinkable”

How violence effects poverty elimination

poverty is the worst form of violence GandhiMy dream is to see a world in which extreme poverty is eliminated. But there is a largely hidden problem which frustrates attempts to deal with economic poverty. A recent study pointed out that the number one problem that poor people face in developing countries is not starvation or disease but a fear of violence. Violence keeps people poor and prevents them bettering themselves and their families.

Imagine …

  • Imagine living in a community where you are totally outside of the rule of law. Where the police force and courts only look after the well-off and the educated. Where law enforcement is under-funded and cannot cope with the multitude of crimes committed against the poor and the vulnerable. Where the police force and courts are corrupt and accept bribes from the guilty.

Justice for bonded labourers

Bonded Labour at a brick kiln
Bonded Labour at a brick kiln in India

Bonded labour is the most common method of enslaving people around the world.  A person becomes a bonded labourer when their labour is demanded to repay a loan. The person is then trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week. Interest makes it impossible to pay the loan off and often debts are passed on to next generation.

They are forced to work to repay debts their employer says they owe, and they are not allowed to work for anyone else. Various forms of force are used to make sure they stay. In many cases they are kept under surveillance, sometimes under lock and key. Poverty and the threats of violence force many bonded labourers to stay with their masters, since they would not otherwise be able to eat or have a place to sleep.

Today the International Labour Organisation estimates a minimum 11.7 million people are in forced labour in the Asia-Pacific region, the majority of these are in debt bondage.

Bonded labour has existed for hundreds of years. It was used to trap labourers into working on plantations in Africa and the Caribbean – after the abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

In South Asia it is rooted in the caste system and predominately affects Dalits (the lowest caste called Untouchables) and still flourishes in agriculture, brick kilns, mills and factories. In the Punjab region of India hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are forced to work as bonded labourers in quarries and brick kilns where they receive little or no pay in return for a loan typically used for survival.

Continue reading “Justice for bonded labourers”

Paul and Race, Class and Gender

Neither Male nor Female.jpgThere is neither Jew nor Greek,
slave nor free,
male nor female,
for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
(Galatians 3:28 NIV)

Paul is often criticised for being pro-slavery and anti-women. But we need to distinguish between the truths he set out and how it was applied to the culture of the day. As a prophet he saw how things ought to be but he was a child of his culture and although what he said was revolutionary in its day, the full implications of what he said would need to wait for progressive revelation in future generations.

Take for instance the matter of slavery. It would take another 1800 years before men like Wilberforce came along and pointed out that slavery was morally and ethically indefensible. People have always considered that their country was superior and even in much of the 20th century, racism was considered normal. Likewise the world is still adjusting to the idea that men and women are created equal.

In this article we will look further into these words of Paul and seek to apply them to the 21st century.

Continue reading “Paul and Race, Class and Gender”