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Slave Labour:
A Reality in the 21^st Century

Clare Holohan
Loreto Abbey SS, Dalkey, Dublin

No one shall be held in Slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms
Article 4, Universal Declaration of Human Rights

There are few people who would find fault with the Article quoted above from the Declaration of Human Rights. When we hear the word ‘slavery’ an image comes to mind of the buying and selling of people, their shipment from one country to another and the abolition of the trade in the nineteenth century. Even if we know nothing about the slave trade, it is something we think of as part of our history rather than the present. But the reality is that slavery still exists TODAY.

According to Anti-slavery International there are at least 26 million slaves in the world at present. People - especially children - can be enslaved today for as little as US$25. Bondage labour or debt bondage is the most widely used method of enslaving people. It begins when a person takes or is tricked into taking a loan for as little as the cost of medicine for a sick child or some food. To repay the debt they are forced to work long hours, seven days a week, 365 days a year. Take an 11-year old boy in India as an example. He has been placed in bondage by his parents in exchange for about US$35. He now works 14 hours a day, seven days a week making beedi cigarettes. This boy is held in ‘debt bondage’. The boy and all his work belong to the slaveholder as long as the debt is unpaid, but not a penny from his work is applied to the debt. Until his parents find the money, this boy is a cigarette-rolling machine, fed just enough to keep him at his task. Most people in bonded labour receive basic food and shelter as ‘payment’ for their work, but may never pay off the loan, which can be passed down through several generations.

Forced labour affects people who are illegally recruited by governments, political parties or private individuals and forced to work – usually under the threat of violence or other penalties. This type of labour applies especially to the estimated 800,000 people in Burma who are forced to work by the military regime. Trafficking is the transport and trade of usually women and children for economic gain using force or deception. The women are tricked into domestic labour or prostitution. Sexual exploitation puts a commercial value on a child. They are often kidnapped, bought, or forced to enter the sex market. It is a fact that up to 2 million women and girls worldwide are victims of a growing trade in forced labour within the sex industry. Other forms of the worst child labour refer to children who work in exploitative or dangerous conditions. Tens of millions of children around the world work full time, depriving them of education and recreation crucial to their personal and social development. In Sierra Leone, children as young as seven are captured by armed groups and trained as soldiers.

For the most part, slaves work at the most basic of tasks: mining, logging, farming, begging, hauling goods, breaking stone, herding and prostitution. But their labour feeds into our economies. Some charcoal in Brazil is made by enslaved workers and charcoal is a key ingredient in Brazil’s steel production, the country’s second largest export. The steel goes into everything from toys to skyscrapers and especially cars and furniture. Our chocolate comes from cocoa harvested by slaves in the Ivory Coast, most of who have never tasted chocolate in their whole life. Our carpets are made by child workers in Pakistan. We enjoy a lower price for these goods because of the slave input, while the slaves themselves earn little or nothing.

Slavery exists today despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practised. It is also prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. Despite this, many governments are unwilling to enforce the law or to ensure that those who profit from slavery are punished. Many countries claim that they are ‘slave-free’ when they are clearly not. In India, declarations by state governments that that they have eradicated debt bondage have given up on the struggle to liberate other bonded workers. Under Indian law, a freed bonded labourer is entitled to compensation and a rehabilitation grant. But when states are ‘slave free’, local officials are reluctant to tarnish their record by reporting workers in bondage. Modern slavery differs from the past in one special way: Slaves today are cheaper than ever in human history. In the same way that mass production lowered the cost of what we buy, overpopulation has made slaves plentiful, cheap and disposable. In 1850, an average agricultural slave in Alabama sold for $1,000, around $40,000 in today’s money. A child in India can be sold into bondage for as little as £25 today.

There are many forms of exploitation in the world, many kinds of injustice and violence. But slavery is exploitation, violence and injustice rolled into one. What good is our economic and political power, if we cannot use it to free slaves? But what can we do to help? Trocaire’s Lenten Campaign this year was to fight slavery. They work with the local partners in the country to free bonded labourers and they set up projects for them to help bring their lives back to normality. Their work cannot be done without the support of the public. Trocaire has also distributed postcards that can be sent to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). Other ways we can fight slavery is by purchasing Fairtrade Mark products such as coffee, tea, honey and chocolate which is on sale in Oxfam shops nationwide. They can guarantee that bonded labour is not used in any part of their manufacture. Rugs should be purchased with a ‘rug mark label’ on it to make sure that it has not been made by exploited children and we can also contact manufacturers to guarantee that chocolate does not have its origin in the horror that is slavery.

It is surely not too radical to say that our dignity as civilised human beings can only be preserved by a determined worldwide struggle to eliminate modern slavery in all its forms.

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