| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
  Slavery April 15, 2001 Producer : Kate Blewett and Brian Woods  Officially, slavery is banned in all countries, yet there are more slaves in the world today than ever before. During the 400 years of the slave trade, around 13 million people were shipped from Africa. The result is this utterly devastating film.Professor Kevin Bales, of the UN Working Group on Contemporary Slavery, notes one crucial difference in today's slavery: "In the old days, slaves were expensive. You kept them for their whole lives, you took care of them. Today they are cheap, there is a glut of slaves and when you've used them, you throw them away if you don't want them any more — they're disposable." The story takes three separate industries where slaves are still to be found and investigates the cocoa industry in the Ivory Coast, the domestic slavery situation in Britain and the USA, and the carpet industry in northern India where at present approximately 4000 to 5000 children are missing from northern Bihar. Among them is Huro, a boy who disappeared at the age of six and who hasn't been seen by his family for more than five years. His father, Chichai, is desperate to find him, yet barely makes enough money to feed his family, making it impossible for him to search for his son. Next week, we'll see the dramatic climax, as Chichai, with the help of the South Asian Coalition against Child Servitude, travels to the carpet belt in a desperate quest to find his son.  In the Cote d'Ivoire cocoa industry, we find more slavery. The country produces nearly half the world's cocoa supply (more than 100 million tonnes), which finds its way into newsagents and supermarkets in Britain. The young men work up to 18 hours a day and are unpaid and beaten if they try to escape. Slaves still working in the plantations are interviewed, as well as a group of young men who had been rescued just days before. One boy, scarred from head to foot from brutal beatings, described how he and other boys were mistreated by their captors if they attempted escape."They would tie your hands behind your back. Then one person would beat your front, and someone else your back," he said. Drissa, an eloquent young man who worked for five-and-a-half years in the plantations, is asked what he would like to say to the rest of the world who eat chocolate: "They enjoy something I suffered to make; I worked hard for them, but saw no benefit. They are eating my flesh."  If we think about modern slavery at all, we imagine it in the developing world, far from our Western democratic capitals. Not so, in both Washington and London. Joy Zerempka, who works with enslaved employees in Washington DC, states: "We have all sorts of cases; we've had women tell us they have not been called by their names. Instead they are referred to as 'the slave' or 'the creature'."It's not all bad news. We also look at how slavery can be fought, both in the UK and abroad, without making the poor poorer. In Brazil, they meet charcoal workers who used to be enslaved but who are now paid because of pressure brought to bear by the North American public after the slavery was exposed. In India, they visit a school for ex-slaves funded by the Rugmark Foundation, an organisation that ensures that carpets sold in our shops have not been made by slaves — freeing the slaves, but keeping the rural Indian economy going. And Professor Bales explains how through organisations like Fair Trade, we can make sure that when we buy a chocolate bar, we're not buying into slavery. The Rugmark Foundation does not have an office in Australia, but it does have a website: http://home.vicnet.net.au/~antislavery/rugmark.htm or go to http://www.anti-slaverysociety.org/ or http://www.childlabor.net/ . Carpet manufacturers in Australia assured Sunday they went out of their way to ensure no rugs sold here were made by slavery, in some cases, visiting the looms where they are made -- as Rugmark does. If you are interested in getting in touch with the South Asian Coalition on Child Servitude, their website and contacts are on:http://www.differentindia.org/sacocs.html. It includes an e-mail address for the Mukti ashram in Delhi, where child slaves are rehabilitated: Mukti@Saccs.unv.ernet.in. And, if you are interested in writing to human rights organisations about the issue, try Amnesty International online at www.amnesty.org.au or UNICEF, which backs the Rugmark label, on: www.unicef.com.au/home.htm. |
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
