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Slavery and Human Trafficking

Submitted by FisehaAssefa on Fri, 08/22/2008 - 10:35
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Slavery, uncovers human exploitation across many cultures throughout history. Slavery, in general, is defined as a systematic exploitation of labor without consent, and/or to the possession of human beings as property.

 

Slavery is believed to be started around 1760 BC. In the ancient civilizations of ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, ancient Persia and the Roman Empire, there happened an exercise of slavery. It is manifested in the form of debt-slavery, punishment of crimes, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment and the birth of slave children to slaves.

 Slavery In Modern Africa

Sorrowfully, slavery in Africa continues today. Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival of Europeans-as did a slave trade that exported millions of sub-Saharan Africans to North Africa, the Middle East, and Persian Gulf. In African countries like Chad, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Sudan, Ghana, Togo, Benin and Ethiopia slavery in modern forms is still in action. Children being sold to Arab herdsmen, bonded labor, child slave trade, prostitution and other forms are the features of modern slavery. Most of the trafficking is done to the Middle East and some how to the capital cities of the African countries and North Africa. (Source: Wikipedia)
It is obvious that children of both sexes and other young people are trafficked to many Middle East countries like United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and South Africa. Most of the traffickers have a cover name of “Employment Agencies”. These agencies use the opportunity of “unemployment” in Africa to traffic children, girls and youth to the Middle East and other countries. As a bad luck, most of these trafficked “modern slaves” are not lucky to come back home or see their families again in life. For most of them, if they are lucky, they come back home being disabled, mentally tortured to half mad, die in prison, or thrown on the Red Sea alive. The common thing is to receive a dead body of these people from the air port. The government of Ethiopia has cancels license of many of these employment agencies several times. In some Middle East countries, a diplomatic relation ship is interrupted officially. However, the problem still continues.
Some of the inhuman abuses they suffer from include:
  •                 - Denial of payment or wage
  •                 - Sexual abuse by their employers
  •                 - Rape on the way to their destination country
  •                 - thrown away from high rise buildings
  •                 - burnt by acids and/or fire
  •                 - Mental and Physical tortures
  •                 - killed and thrown away on the street
  •                 - taken away to remote areas where there is no communication and inaccessible
  •                 - forced to work for more than one family for long sleepless hours
  •                 - Prostitution and drug abuse and many other abuses
After they are taken as an employee, they are treated as a property. What is Human right to their employers? No answer yet.
In my next blog, I will come with real cases and eyewitnesses of the victims.
Fiseha Assefa
 
 
 
 

 

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