We are proud of our history, and we raise it in glory, but at the same time, we forget that we have done so many things wrong. We don’t talk too much about historical mistakes because they are sad, we bury them in the historical depths, but this attitude risks generating the repetitiveness of our mistakes by future generations.
One of our mistakes that are rooted in history is slavery, which dates back to 3500 years BC. It has developed in different ways considering factors such as human development, economic recovery, and last but not least the whims of the upper class of society.
Although it may seem that slavery is a problem of the past, we have a high reate of slavery in the XXI century too.
In the age of human rights, where the World democratic powers boast their democracies, we have an approximate 40 million people in slavery worldwide in 2017.
So how is this huge number of people, which is about as large as the entire population of Ukraine, Iraq, Canada, is so hard to see? If we have a society in which we claim to support human rights, then what keeps slavery alive?
In 2017, the European Coalition for Corporate Justice made a research on the indicators of modern slavery, the supply chains being one of the key indicators of slavery. The study found that companies that did not indicate the source of supply had a high risk of being part of supporting slavery by buying raw materials from sources that use slaves in industry. In this situation where companies like L’Oreal, Revlon, Boots, and Estee Lauder have no mentions about their mica supply (mica being a mineral used to create shine in makeup. It is collected from Northeast India, where around 20 000 children work). Then Ferrero, Hershey, Lindt, and Sprungli did not say where they get the cocoa supply, except some of them said only the area of the cocoa provisions – West Africa, which is also known for the child forced labor in the cocoa production. In the same line, there is Cartier, Pandora, Tiffany, Signet, and Goldsmiths that did not provide any information about the source of gold that supplies them, when the International Labour Organisation estimated around 1 million child being victims of mine slavery.
Then in 2018 Vogue made a study on the fashion industry sustaining that it is one of the five key industries involved in modern slavery. Australia is one of the suspected countries possibly involved in modern slavery through the fashion industry. Many factories from the fashion industry situated in Bangladesh, China and Vietnam have a high risk of encouraging slavery for the sake of clothes production and a higher income.
At this point, we understand that slavery is a problem known to big businesses, but we do not want to solve this problem because it probably involves the loss of money.
Understanding this, we focus on states, which should be the main actors in the destruction of slavery. But what we find is that even the states are not doing much, even worse, recently have been found two cases of US diplomats that had staff in their residencies working in conditions of slavery.
Besides the slavery we know, today we assist also at a new kind of slavery- modern slavery, which is defined as the exploitation of people by forcing them to do something. This kind of slavery is about exposed people that search for work for survival. In many cases, we speak about poor people, those that do not know their rights, migrant workers, etc. According to Minderoo Foundation, 136 000 people are exposed to modern slavery in the United Kingdom.
So if the big firms are aware of slavery and still encourage it by their actions, if the national states are aware of this problem and still tolerate it or fight it but not well enough, what can we do to fight it?
In the first place, we do not see many discussions in media about this, so the first step will be to talk about this problem, because without knowing we are contributing to the sustainment of slavery. How? By buying products and services from businesses that take raw materials from manufacturers that use slaves, or accessing services from businesses that also use slaves in their work.
So, what can we do to help eradicate slavery?
The most convenient solutions are: to inform ourselves, to talk about the slavery problem and inform our relatives about this. Do not avoid this discussion just because it’s a sad topic. And most important, we have to inform ourselves before buying something, to find out information about the origin of products and services (if the products are made in Bangladesh or Vietnam and their price is small, there is a great probability of them being made by slaves).
We must not forget that if a subject is not discussed, that does not mean that it does not exist. Closing our eyes and treating problems as if they did not exist would only increase the risk of repeating the same historical mistakes: slavery, genocide, wars, etc.
A simple proof that our approach did not change anything is history. The definition of slavery we had for centuries is that which describes it as a form of exploitation in which people are deprived of any rights, and any decision regarding their life, the work they do, rewards for work, health, etc. will be decided by their masters. Who are their masters? – they are people who have sufficient financial resources that afford to buy slaves. By looking in history we identify who these people were. According to Sarah Hughes and Trevor Burnard, they were merchants, farm owners, residents of villages, shipyards, artisans, and even tenants. Most of them did not even have a large farm and were not very rich, on the contrary, they were poor. It is assumed that slavery came to improve the relationship of the poor class in America with the rich one. The system provided the poor of America the right to own or rent slaves, a solution which meant to calm down the revolts of the poor masses against the rich.
Slavery lasted so long in the past because if the slave owner no longer needed them he could rent them to someone else, which brought him economic advantages.
For centuries the slaves have been sold in states like Africa, Europe, and Asia with priority to the European colonizators of the America.
At this point, we must understand that slavery is mostly the fault of the rich nations, which paid for thousands of years for slaves initially, then for cheaper services and products that came from businesses that involved slavery. Finally, here we are, in the XXI century which is officially about human rights but with a lot of people still working in slavery.
In conclusion, we must understand that our way of approaching the problem as citizens is the key to destroying slavery. Do not stay silent about it, speak about it, get more information in any activity you do, and this way slavery will disappear because there will be no more profits from these businesses, and the interests in slavery will disappear. Hope remains with us.
Sources:
Burnard T. (1996). Who bought slaves in early America? Purchasers of slaves from the Royal African company in Jamaica, 1674–1708. A Journal of Slave and Post-Slave Studies, vol.17, issue 2, 68-92.
Core Coalition. (2017, 10 05). Modern slavery: top companies fail to name supply chain risks. Retrieved 07 21, 2020, from European Coalition dor Corporate Justice: https://corporatejustice.org/news/3380-modern-slavery-top-companies-fail-to-name-supply-chain-risks
Datta M. (2019, 01 14). How many people are enslaved in the world today? Retrieved 07 20, 2020, from World Economic Forum: https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/01/fact-check-how-many-people-are-enslaved-in-the-world-today/
Gross D. (2018, 12 02). Over 40 million people still victims of slavery. Retrieved 07 20, 2020, from UN News: https://news.un.org/en/story/2018/12/1027271
Hughes S. (1978). Slaves for hire: the allocation of black labor in Elisabeth city county, Virginia, 1782-1810. The William and Mary Quarterly, vol.35, no.2, 260-286.
Lovejoy P. (2012). A history of slavery in Africa. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Merelli A. (2019, 07 17). There are 16 million slaves around the world making our stuff. Retrieved 07 21, 2020, from QUARTZ, Human Capital: https://qz.com/1667463/the-global-business-supply-chain-employs-16-million-slaves/
Minderoo Foundation. (2018, 07 18). MORE THAN 136,000 PEOPLE ARE LIVING IN MODERN SLAVERY IN THE UNITED KINGDOM. Retrieved 07 21, 2020, from Global Slavery Index: https://www.globalslaveryindex.org/news/more-than-136000-people-are-living-in-modern-slavery-in-the-united-kingdom/
Press C. (2018, 07 23). Fashion identified as one of five key industries implicated in modern slavery. Retrieved 07 21, 2020, from Vogue: https://www.vogue.com.au/fashion/news/fashion-identified-as-one-of-five-key-industries-implicated-in-modern-slavery/news-story/4cbd8bdc1168f3925bc8cbc96b1f6e6e
Worldometer. (2020, 07 01). Countries in the world by population (2020). Retrieved 07 20, 2020, from Worldometer: https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/population-by-country/