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A BRILLIANT SHORT LITTLE VISUAL AGAINST MODERN DAY SLAVERY

JOIN THE 21st CENTURY ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice,
but there must never be a time when we fail to protest."    Elie Wiesel

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Where you spend your dollars makes a difference in the lives of so many people around the world. Send the message to suppliers that you only want to purchase products made with fair labor practices.

Child slaves still working in China’s brick kilns Straight from Asiasnew.it:  (From 2009)

Abducted in one place and taken far away, China’s child slaves are sold for as little as US$ 45, beaten into submission and forced to work. The police however show little concern for the missing person reports filed by parents who have to look for their children on their own across the country. 

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – “Guo Jiyong, the son of Zhang Aihua,” travelled “to Zhengzhou to sell snacks, and to deliver lunchboxes to construction sites. He was stuffed into a sack by three men, thrown into the back of a truck, and taken off to the brick kilns to be sold,” Wang Changyi told Radio Free Asia. The slavers “were selling people at 300 yuan (US$ 44 ) each” and kidnapping “seven or eight people a day,” said Wang, a farmer from Henan who lost his son to slave traders, as he described the flourishing slave trade in China. Little seems to have changed in the People’s Republic since cases of slave labour came to light in June 2007 when it was revealed that brick kilns in Shanxi and Henan were employing child slaves.

Guo was forced to work for two and a half years in an illegal brick kiln in Nanyang. During that time he saw people beaten to death for trying to escape. Then, one night he escaped with two other inmates. They were caught and killed. He was able to make it home. READ FULL ARTICLE

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                                                                              MODERN DAY SLAVERY
                                                                                 by Betsy Seeton - 2009
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     Take a piece of paper and write down these numbers. Two. Seven. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Zero. Now read it. I can't even picture 27,000,000 of anything. That's how many people are slaves on the planet. And children are half of all the people trafficked. They are stolen and bought and sold into a worldwide market for sex and domestic slavery. It leaves me utterly gobsmacked. It's so overwhelming that it stops most people from even trying to make a difference. Those are the people I want to reach the most.    

    The horrific reality is that 27,000,000 is the number of human beings who are at this very moment living lives as slaves.   And I mean  slave in every sense, in every horror of the definition, and every imaginable way and then some. These people (mostly women and children) have no choice about the way they live their lives. Not 'no choice' as in you have a crummy job you want to change and you wish your car was newer. I mean NO CHOICE and they're brutalized in countless ways all the time. Many have no choice over their own bodies. They have no say about who touches them or how they are touched.  Many are repeatedly raped day in and day out for years. They are often beaten, starved, and in addition to the physical abuse, most are  emotionally tormented. They do not have control over where they work, how long they work, or where they live or when or what they get to eat -- if they get to eat.  

 

    
    I think for a lot of westerners, the idea of slavery is of it being "over there" somewhere across the ocean happening to people who live differently.  Not true. It's right here in America. But where it is shouldn't matter anyway. Somehow the idea that it might be a cultural thing keeps it from being an outrage.  If it's cultural, then it's sort of excusable even if we don't get it.         

    For most Americans, it seems the whole concept of slavery died out in the 1800's. Any discussion of it now as a 21st Century "thing" just isn't sinking in. If it did sink in, people would be outraged. They'd be so outraged they'd demand slave free products be provided by every company. They'd shake down massage parlors. They'd go after the truck stops. They'd be attending rallies en masse. Laws would protect the victims versus criminalizing them.  But there is no mass outrage. There is little demand for slave free products.  Most people have heard somethingerother about slaves and something about fair trade, but it's a shoulder shrug mostly. 

    Perhaps some have heard something about kids in the cotton fields and working the cocoa farms. But that's what they do over there, right? The family needs the money so let the kids work, right? To top it off, I think a lot of westerners are struggling to maintain their own lifestyles, so quite frankly, there isn’t enough time or energy to get dragged down by something as dark and seemingly hopeless as slavery.
 
     After illegal drug sales and arms trafficking, human and animal trafficking are the most profitable criminal activities in the world, generating over $40 billion annually. The sale of humans and animals are fueling a whole underground world of illicit activities including terrorism.   

     As for animals, tens of thousands upon thousands are dying senseless deaths each year from heartless, greedy poachers. I'm hearing numbers that would blow you away. Elephants are being killed to dangerous levels to supply the insatiable demand for ivory. (Yes, it's still banned, but it's still craved.) The U.S., in particular, has a killer appetite for ivory. Tigers and rhinos are vanishing at alarming rates to supply the demand for  superstitious medical remedies in China. (The tiger penis is served up in elite Chinese restaurants for $5,000 a plate for its beliefs in “Viagra” results.) All kinds other species are killed for their pelts (fur and leather), while so many others - birds, reptiles, and all kinds of animals -- are sold into captivity as exotic pets for the entertainment of humans. Find out how you may unwittingly be supporting both human and animal trafficking.....