Slavery Today
When discussing current events in one of my politics classes this week, a CNN article discussing the persistence of slavery in Mauritania was the topic of conversation (1). I was surprised by how my peers responded to this article – they were shocked at the existence of slavery in our modern world and suggested embargoes, sanctions, and for international attention to be drawn to the issue to solve the problem and free the slaves. Unfortunately slavery is not an issue exclusive to Mauritania that can be solved through a process of embargoes or sanctions, it is a massive systemic issue that involves people living all over the world. According to the Global Slavery Index, nearly 30 million people around the globe were enslaved as of 2013(2). This index rates Mauritania as the country in which slavery is the most prevalent, followed by Haiti, Pakistan, and India. India tops the list as the country with the most slaves, an astounding 14 million – meaning India alone accounts for nearly half the people held in slavery today(3). Slavery has become a part of how our society functions, we who live in first world countries rely on the fruits of the cheap labour we (either consciously or unconsciously) exploit from those who live in third world countries.
It is easy to imagine slavery as something removed from our lives, something that happened in another time in another place. This is inaccurate, slavery is happening now, here. The products of slavery are present in our everyday lives, for example Walmart and Costco both stock prawns produced by slave labour(4). The men who catch these prawns are held on fishing ships against their will (in chains!!) and are sold as property, regularly beaten, and offered drugs to keep them going. And somehow these prawns – the fruits of their exploited labour – end up in our supermarkets and in our unquestioning bellies. ‘Products of Slavery’ ranks gold, cotton, bricks, sugar, tobacco, coffee, rice, garments, pornography and coal as the top ten products most commonly made using either forced labour or child labour(5). I can say right now that I’m wearing garments (although admittedly I’m pretty sure the Amnesty International shirt I’m wearing wasn’t made using slave labour), had a coffee this morning and plan to eat rice for dinner – am I consuming slave made goods in my daily life? Almost certainly. Does my consumption perpetuate the existence of slavery? Almost certainly.
So what can we do to combat modern slavery? The first thing that comes to my mind is to boycott the companies that we know employ such systems – to not buy the slave-produced prawns/bricks/coffee etc. However there are several issues with this method of resistance; firstly that it would have little affect unless coordinated on an enormous scale, secondly that it can at times be almost impossible to trace a product back to the conditions under which it was made. On the first point, a boycott only works if it is large enough for the company to feel its impact. For instance if I decided not to buy prawns to send a message that I refuse to support the enslavement of the workers who caught them, my action would be a drop in the ocean that is the consumers of those prawns. For a boycott to be effective it would have to be on a scale large enough to create a wave to rock the corporate boat, which would require global coordination. Furthermore, it is very often impossible to tell if a product has been made at least in part by slave labour. For instance though the shirt I am wearing may not have been produced using slave labour, the cotton it is made from may have been. Globalisation has seen the production process split up into infinitesimally small parts, any or all of which might have involved slave labour.
I believe that the first step to combatting modern slavery is to generate recognition of it. The reaction of my politics tutorial to the case in Mauritania is exemplary of the little knowledge held about modern slavery, as is the continued stocking of slave-produced prawns in our supermarkets. Modern slavery is an enormous systemic issue that requires a complex solution. It is not going to be solved by embargoing Mauritania or by boycotting certain products. It is not going to be solved overnight, and it is not going to be solved easily. In order to begin changing the system in which modern slavery persists, we must begin a dialogue about it. We must raise awareness of how our every day consumption creates a demand for enslaved labour, and we must generate pressure for high level change. The Walk Free Foundation recently released a Global Slavery Index – the first of its kind, which provides a thorough analysis of slavery around the world. This document calls governments to remove barriers to justice for victims, provide education about the illegality of slavery and the avenues to escape it, shut down corruption in law enforcement, and numerous other key steps which must be implemented in order to end modern slavery. This is the sort of change which must occur, and as individuals our focus should be in putting pressure on our governments, other governments, and international organisations to ensure this happens. Slavery is addressed in the first and the fourth articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declare respectively that ‘all human beings are born free’ and ‘no one shall be held in slavery or servitude’. This is the most absolute, fundamental human right, and it needs to be upheld around the world.
1John D. Sutter, C. (2014). Slavery’s last stand – CNN.com. CNN. Retrieved 26 September 2014, from http://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/
2Walk Free Foundation,. (2013). The Global Slavery Index (p. 1).
3 ibid, p. 7
4Hodal, K., & Kelly, C. (2014). Revealed: Asian slave labour producing prawns for supermarkets in US, UK. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2014/jun/10/supermarket-prawns-thailand-produced-slave-labour
5Productsofslavery.org,. (2014). ProductsOfSlavery. Retrieved 25 September 2014, from http://www.productsofslavery.org