The New Slavery

1. The New Slavery Introduction to Disposable People

2. Seba’s story • 22-year old-freed slave from Mali • taken to France with the promise of a job and an education, but actually kept locked up as a servant and severely abused • French Committee Against Modern Slavery calls it “torture” • smart but undeveloped: no knowledge of time, seasons, her own age/birthday, the concept of “choice”

3. But does it still exist today? • estimated 3,000 household slaves in Paris • children are also kept as house slaves in London, New York, Zurich, Los Angeles, etc. • you have likely consumed products that were made directly or indirectly through slave labor: • shoes and carpets from Pakistan • sugar and toys from the Caribbean • clothing and jewelry from India • a slave could have made the bricks that built factories where other products were made • the charcoal that tempers the steel that is used in other manufacturing • the rice that feeds us and other people and workers around the world • connected to larger companies through investments, mutual funds, stocks, etc. • Slave labor keeps costs low for producers and consumers • The number of slaves is actually increasing!

4. Meaning of the title, Disposable People “On more than ten occasions I woke early in the morning to find the corpse of a young girl floating in the water by the barge. Nobody bothered to bury the girls. They just threw their bodies in the river to be eaten by the fish.” • (young prostitutes in a mining town in the Amazon)

5. How many slaves are we talking? • hard to find reliable evidence because governments deny it • rough estimate: 27 million worldwide • 15-20 million of these are bonded laborers (largely in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal) • Others can be found in Southeast Asia, northern and western Africa, and South America • more slaves today than all that were taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade

6. What makes a slave? Is it still about black and white? • race is no longer a major factor • a “good bottom line” (profit) is justification enough • local slaves save transportation costs • characteristics of slaves: weak, gullible, deprived, impoverished

7. Conditions that foster slavery • world population has tripled since 1945 • greatest population growth in countries where slavery is prevalent • these countries are flooded with children (in some places, over half the population is under the age of fifteen) • there is little opportunity for work and diminishing resources • modernization has brought wealth to the elite and continued impoverishment to the poor majority • civil wars throughout Africa/Asia • bankrupt peasants driven off their land • focus on economic growth, not sustainable livelihoods for the majority: the rich get richer and the poor get poorer

8. Simple economics: supply & demand • Since there are many possible slaves, their value plummets • Slaves are like computers (explain)

9. Old slavery New slavery legal ownership avoided very low purchase cost very high profits glut of potential slaves short-term relationship slaves disposable ethnic differences not important • legal ownership asserted • high purchase cost • low profits • shortage of potential slaves • long-term relationship • slaves maintained • ethnic differences important

10. in the American South, slaves only generated a 5% profit for their owners, now it can be over 50% profit • EX: rural Thai girls are enslaved as prostitutes by urban Thai brothel owners • they feed the prostitutes and keep them presentable but throw them away if they are injured, too old, or HIV positive • Thai prostitutes can generate an 800% yearly profit for their holders and each girl is usually good for a solid 3-6 years of work

11. Slavery always equals violence • From the threat of violent to severe physical abuse • A loss of control over one’s own life and an obligation to the slaveholder • Being held against their wills for the purpose of exploitation

12. Chattel slavery • common in northern and western Africa, some Arab countries • similar to the old slavery • slaves are captured/born/sold into permanent servitude • the slaves’ children are also treated as property and may be sold by the slaveholder

13. Debt bondage • Most common type of modern slavery • Takes place especially on the Indian subcontinent • a slave pledges his or her self against a loan of money • the length and nature of the service is often undefined • the labor never reduces the original debt • can be passed down through generations

14. Contract slavery • common in Southeast Asia, Brazil, some Arab states, some parts of the Indian subcontinent • most rapidly-growing form • fake contracts hide what’s actually going on

15. Other types of slavery • “war slavery” in Burma • government and army capture civilians to work on national projects like the Burmese natural gas pipeline project (The U.S. oil company Unocal was a partner in this project) • enslaved workers (including the elderly, pregnant women, and children) were forced at gunpoint to clear land and build the pipeline • “restavecs” in West Africa and the Caribbean • children are sold into domestic services • a culturally approved way of dealing with “extra” children • slavery and religion: young girls offered as slaves to atone for sins committed by family members (often the product of rape)

16. How much money comes from slave labor? • agricultural bonded laborers: $860 million/yr • women & children prostitutes: $10.5 billion/yr • total estimate: $13 billion/yr

17. How this affects all of us • by always looking for the cheapest products and the best deal, we are likely choosing slave-made goods • slave labor threatens real jobs everywhere • shift from culturally-specific forms to a standardized/globalized form • world shrinks through easier communication • businessmen all over the world are seeing how other people are generating profits

18. Laxmi’s story (p. 27-28)

19. Police/government involvement • slaveholders buy political power and acceptance • local police often enforce labor contracts and pursue runaway slaves • in many places, the police are the organized crime; they are the ones with a state monopoly on violence

20. Why slavery works • during time of rapid political/social change, social order may disintegrate and lead to a “might makes right” system of justice • economic conditions needed for slavery • people to enslave • demand for slave labor • resources to fund obtainment of slaves • power to control slaves • cost of slave labor must be less than the cost of free labor • demand for products at a price where slavery is profitable • slave must lack alternatives and lack the power to defend himself

21. How we can stop it • slavery cannot thrive where most of the population has: • a decent standard of living and some financial security (whether it is personal security or government-provided safety nets) • Hit these governments in their pocketbooks. Make it so that slavery is no longer profitable!