Basically such a headline tells you everything that is wrong with the modern world. I'm wondering if "Fight Against Slavery Group Advertises for Unpaid Internship" was a publicity stunt. If it was, they clearly didn't follow up on it. Why else would you look for an unpaid internship rather than search for a volunteer?
Today, December 02, is International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. Last year I discussed "My family's Slave", a story written by Alex Tizón about Mrs. Pulido, his family's house slave. During the year I bookmark articles and on December second I weave them together. This year a selection of stories dealing with modern day slavery in various forms, such as forced marriage and forced labour. Moms are the world's natural goddesses. In one particular depressing read however a mother betrays her daughter by marrying him off to a far flung relative in Pakistan.
Writer's block is not really my thing. Despite that, it is sad to see just how easy - technically that is - it was to write this post.
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| 30% under 15 |
All child marriages are forced ones. Generally speaking, they also come without the option of divorce. It's just terrible. Adding injury to insult, what if you are a young girl, some 14 years old, forced to marry a random boy of similar age because of climate change?
Unreal you say? I agree, but it happens in countries such as Bangladesh. Don't like the narrative? Who does? Next time some random greedy domme orders a real slave like yourself to contribute to something greater than you, pay for the education of a Bangladeshi teenage girl. True devotion to female superiority is not nearly as expensive as you think. Meanwhile girls who stay in school are both less likely to become pregnant and more likely to have safe pregnancies. Baby steps I know, but like always there is a place and time for everything. link
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| Ariana Miyamoto, Miss Universe Japan 2015 |
Talking about babies, the Japanese are not having enough sex. Even though I love all things kinky in Japan, this has nothing to do with male chastity or something similar silly. If the trend continues, the population will shrink from about 130 million people today to about 80 million in a few decades.
If you cannot interest the population in having more babies, you have to import workers. Isolated for most of its history, Japan's attitude towards foreigners - actual or perceived - is mostly negative. Even Ariana Miyamoto, Miss Universe Japan 2015, was confronted with a huge backlash after becoming the first hāfu (multiracial) woman to be Miss Japan. If you're not pretty or Japanese, your fate is even worse. All over East Asia workers are being recruited on temporary visas, that are highly restrictive and lead to exploitation that often can only be classified as exploitation. Recently The Washington Post wrote about a young woman from Myanmar, one of the poorest countries in the world, who moved to Japan on a temporary visa, called Technical Intern Training Program or TITP. She ended up packing boxes daily from seven in the morning till 10 at night for half the pay she was promised. Not only are temporary workers from other countries not allowed to switch employees, most of them also pay hefty sums of money to intermediaries for the 'privilige' of joining a so-called training program. As you all know, I love Japan, but how can the land of Zen be beautiful and vile at the same time? link
3. People trafficking in the Netherlands
Holland is no paradise either. Anand, who studied accountancy, is from Southern Cameroon, where the English speaking minority is being discriminated by a French-speaking elite. Because she doesn't speak French, it is impossible for her to land an accounting job. Working as a hair dresser to survive, she meets a woman from Nigeria, who promises her a better future by working abroad - one in which she can support her elderly parents - in a hair salon.
Once she arrives in Amsterdam, Anand is forced into prostitution. Of course she dreams of escaping, but her only freedom is that dream during the few moments she closes her eyes. Pregnant, not by choice, unable to make money for her pimp, Anand has to clean the house. One day her captor forgets the key is still in the lock and she manages to escape. In the streets, she grabs hold of the first random stranger she sees, who finally brings her to safety. Not that her nightmare ends there. Without names or other evidence to corroborate her story, the young mother faces deportation back to Cameroon. After all, who knows, perhaps, just perhaps, she made it all up and got pregnant in the hope that people would buy her story. We all know that ain’t true. Sadly, this is just one of many examples about victims of human trafficking, mostly women forced into prostitution.
Vying with traffickers for being the ultimate lowlife, a number of politicians in the Netherlands, immediately cried foul play. Ironically, the same ones not playing by the rules, those of being a decent human being, that is. "These women are not victims - and even if they perhaps, maybe, under a very limited set of circumstances somehow are - send them back. It's the only way ‘our’ system (nobody knows what that means anyway) can survive. That matters, because the strength - and ultimately, humanity - of our system is based on separating the wheat from the chaff." Clearly our politicians have never gone hungry, because otherwise they would be much less picky. Deperate on the other hand? Most likely they will never understand – partly because they don’t care. Being desperate for votes is very different from actually being desperate. link (in Dutch)
There are few countries in the world that I won't visit. North Korea is perhaps the only one. Not because I'm afraid but because I don't want to put money into the hands of a regime that basically has turned the whole country into one big slave market.
Women in North Korea are routinely subjected to sexual violence by government officials, prison guards, interrogators, police, prosecutors, and soldiers. Men in power operate with impunity and “when a guard or police officer ‘picks’ a woman, she has no choice but to comply with any demands he makes, whether for sex, money, or other favours”.
In a recent United Nations Human Rights Council report Oh Jung-hee, a trader interviewed by Human Rights Watch, described the prevalence of abuse where market guards and police “considered us [sex] toys”.
“It happens so often nobody thinks it is a big deal,” she said. “We don’t even realise when we are upset. But we are human, and we feel it. So sometimes, out of nowhere, you cry at night and don’t know why.”
North Korea feels like some evil prison camp. Not travelling there doesn't mean you don't sponsor the dictatorship. North Korean slaves are building Dutch ships in Poland, a local newspaper reported earlier this year. link
Evil is everywhere. In one of the most shocking stories about modern day slavery a Lincolnshire gang forced at least 18 victims to work for little or no pay and live in squalor for up to 26 years. The Rooney family targeted vulnerable people, including some with alcohol or drug addiction, and deliberately looked for potential captives on the streets. Once the victims accepted they were allocated dilapidated caravans mostly with no heating, water or toilet facilities, working long hours so the Rooney family could go on holidays to Barbados, cosmetic surgery and coaching at a Manchester United football school. Exploitation, violence and extortion were a way of life. The Rooney family were jailed for 79 years in total, 6.5 year on average per family member, for modern day slavery and fraud. link1 link2
In 2007 Mauritania passed legislation making the practice of slavery punishable by up to 10 years in prison. A decade later thirteen anti-slavery campaigners were sentenced for up to 15 years in prison in Mauritania last week, for their role in a protest aimed at denouncing the practice of slavery in the country. The decision condemned by international campaigners as a “devastating blow”.
The West African nation is a focus of activism by the modern anti-slavery movement over a practice believed to affect between four and 20 percent of the population.
For centuries, the black Haratins have been caught in a cycle of servitude enforced by the white Moors, who are lighter-skinned descendants of Arab Berbers. Some members of the Haratin group are sometimes born into slavery, and their masters are able to sell them or buy them as gifts. There’s also been reports of government collusion with Arab Berbers into intimidating slaves who break free from their masters. link1 link2
7. Slave husbands of Hong Kong: the men who marry into servitude
It's the same everywhere. Poor people desperate for a way out, are willing to take hugh risks just for that visa. In this case vulnerable men from India and Pakistan are being tricked into arranged marriages and trafficked to Hong Kong where they work as bonded labourers and indentured servants for their in-laws, too afraid or ashamed to speak out. link
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| Sunny Angel has written a book, Wings, about her experiences ‘as a sex slave and skivvy’ in a forced marriage. |
Marriage is perfectly suited for slavery the level of control you can exert over someone else is unprecedented. Only on TV do bad people change and become the perfect spouse. In the real world that never happens. Bad people never change.
In Britain more than 3,500 reports of forced marriage were made to police over a three-year period. Victims live in conditions of modern slavery in homes across the UK. link1 link2
9. Birmingham woman jailed for duping daughter into forced marriage
The other day I wrote about how Moms are the closest thing to being an actual goddess in this world. There are some exceptions. If a daughter can no longer trust her mother, perhaps it's best for the dinosaurs to return and rule the earth once again.
Mom promised her daughter a family holiday and also bribed her with a phone. Instead - after bringing her to Pakistan - the"parent" told her daughter on her 18th birthday that she would marry a relative, the same guy who got her pregnant on a previous visit when she was 13 and he was 29.
Usually parents don't need to bribe their kids to go on holiday, so mother very well knew what she was doing.
In court the daughter explained how she felt like an “object that could be moved from place to place”. She later told how she cried during the wedding and begged her mother not to send her home with the groom after being forced to sign marriage papers.
Her mother later abandoned her in Pakistan before lying under oath to a high court judge in the UK about what had happened. The defendant psychologically and emotionally manipulated her daughter – a vulnerable person with learning disabilities who craved the affection of her parents and wanted nothing more than the love and approval of her mother. link1 link2
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| Lucky woman |
Just like I love Japan, I love Belgium. The country shares a border and a long history with the Netherlands. For a while I followed the story of former Miss Belgium, Daisy Van Cauwenbergh, who was being accused of human trafficking. The prosecution claimed she and her husband lured a Thai couple to Belgium to work in their villa but treated them like slaves. The Thai employees worked long hours for little money because 'expenses' were deducted from their pay. In the end the couple was not charged because of the statue of limitations for such crimes had run out. Whatever. Just ask yourself why you would fly workers all the way from Thailand to work in your house when there is so much unemployment right in front of you. link
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| Andrew Jackson (source unknown) |
11. Hunting down runaway slaves: The cruel ads of Andrew Jackson and ‘the master class’
This one isn't about modern day slavery, but it's equally important to look back and remember just how evil slavery is.
Andrew Jackson was the seventh President of the United States from 1829 to 1837. He also was a slave owner. Throughout his lifetime he may have owned as many as 300 slaves.
In 1804 one slave escaped. US President to be Andrew Jackson offered a $50 reward, plus “reasonable” expenses to “stop the runaway.” The line at the end off the add was particular cruel: “ten dollars extra, for every hundred lashes any person will give him, to the amount of three hundred.”
The person who captured the runaway slave and gave him 300 lashes would make an extra $30 on top of the $50 reward plus expenses. Translated into today's money, $100 in 1804 is about $2,000 in 2018. If formal slavery still existed, capturing a runaway makes you about $1,000 in 2018 dollars. Looking for quick cash? Give your victim 300 lashes and you make an extra $600. Sensitive personality? Outsource it. Slavery has always been big business. It still is. link
December 02 is the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery. As a reminder for us kinky people about the ugly truth of real world slavery, once a year I write about modern day slavery.
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