Category Archives: Slavery

‘Coal workers are orphans’: the children and slaves mining Pakistan’s coal

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Injuries and fatalities are common among thousands of debt-bonded men and children toiling in one of the world’s harshest work environments

All photographs by Mashal Baloch

The spectre of death hovers over the coal mines of Balochistan. Under scorching skies, this turbulent south-west region of Pakistan is home to one of the world’s harshest work environments, where tens of thousands of men and children descend below the surface each day to dig up thousands of tonnes of coal.

The threats of underground explosions, methane gas poisoning, suffocation, or mine walls collapsing are omnipresent and there is barely a single worker across the state’s five massive commercial coal mines who has not been touched by the fatalities that are common here.

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How Nepal’s migration ban traps female ‘modern day slaves’ in the Gulf

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Rules intended to protect domestic workers have only made them more vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, say activists

Amita* knew she had to escape. After five months of being assaulted, starved and being forced to work for 20 hours a day as a domestic maid in a suburban house in Kuwait, the 45-year old from Nepal seized her chance. While the household slept, she climbed out of a downstairs bathroom window and fled.

Amita managed to find the Nepali embassy, hoping that staff there would assure her safety and help send her home to Kathmandu.

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Thailand hit by record number of human trafficking cases

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About 60% of those rescued last year were women, often trafficked for seafood industry or sex trade

Thailand rescued a record 1,807 victims of human trafficking last year, according to data that campaigners on Monday said raised concerns about the nation’s ability to support survivors.

The number of victims soared from 622 in 2018, while the previous high was 982 in 2015, the government data showed.

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Poverty-stricken Hungarians are easy pickings for traffickers on Facebook

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Promises of a better life in many social media posts are often a trap for marginalised communities such as the Roma

In the village of Bag, north-east of Budapest, the houses along the main street are smart and well-kept. Tucked behind, up a slight hill, where the buildings become bare brick and the tarmac road turns into a dust track, people sit on the ground in the afternoon sun, talking and playing cards.

These are the Roma, or the Roma who remain in Hungary, where they live on society’s edge, clinging on in the outskirts of towns and villages, shunned and stigmatised as potential criminals.

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Field of broken dreams: football’s slave trade – photo essay

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All they want is to do is play professionally, but for many young hopefuls from Africa their expensive journey to Turkey ends in exploitation

• Photographs by Italo Rondinella

For months, Yves Kibendo woke up every morning at 6am. He would leave his house in an ancient area of Istanbul, returning late in the evening, after working for 12 hours in a textile factory.

He was paid under the table, or sometimes not at all.

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Australian paedophiles pay as little as $15 for online abuse of children in Philippines

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Australian federal police say livestreaming of children performing sexual acts marks ‘alarming shift’


Australian paedophiles are paying as little as A$15 for children to perform sexual acts online while being filmed in the Philippines, according to the head of the Australian federal police team in Manila.

Senior officer Andrew Perkins told Guardian Australia there was an “alarming shift” from previously more common types of “sex tourism” to “convenient and low-risk” online abuse of children which can be customised to the specific requirements of customers.

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‘A story about freedom’: why an artist is re-enacting a forgotten slave revolt

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Hundreds of people dressed in costume will reconstruct an 1811 Louisiana slave uprising, the largest in US history

In the middle of a grassy traffic island, adjacent to a nondescript strip mall in southern Louisiana, stands the only physical memorial to an event that rocked the racist foundations of the United States.

A brown plaque, erected to commemorate a plantation home, has one short, embossed aside: “Major 1811 slave uprising organized here.”

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‘They see us as slaves’: Kenyan women head for the Gulf despite abuse fears | Jillian Keenan and Njeri Rugene

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Kenyan government reforms promise to make domestic work safer in a region notorious for labour trafficking – but are they working?

In a busy recruitment agency in Nairobi’s central business district, dozens of women line the halls. All hope that today they will secure a job as a domestic worker in the Gulf states, cooking, cleaning and caring for another family thousands of miles from their own homes.

Pamela Mbogo* is one of them. The 29-year-old has found a job in Saudi Arabia starting next month. It’s not her first time as a domestic worker. On the previous occasion she lived and worked for a family in Bahrain, where she was abused and locked inside the house for days at a time. Yet, this time, Mbogo believes it will be different.

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‘Tone deaf’ ads use slave ship images to promote UK sea-going sector

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Campaign accused of ignoring colonial abuses when setting out maritime industries’ future

Historians and academics have labelled a new government campaign “tone deaf” and “historically illiterate” for using images of ships used for slavery and colonisation to promote Britain’s maritime sector.

The UK has a long history with commercial shipping, reaching as far back as 1700 ⚓️
 
Our #Maritime2050 plan maps out the next 30 years of innovation. Find out more https://t.co/VqYPNw300C #LISW19 pic.twitter.com/0Olw3gk2F8

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Beto O’Rourke’s ancestors were slaveholders, records reveal

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Exclusive: O’Rourke addresses family history for the first time and admits that he and his children are ‘beneficiaries’ of slaveholding

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke recently delivered an impassioned speech while meeting with the Gullah-Geechee Nation, an organization of African Americans whose ancestors were enslaved on plantations from Florida to South Carolina.

The speech in Beaufort followed one attendee’s question about whether O’Rourke supports reparations, the idea of compensation for the descendants of slaves.

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The living hell of children trapped in Dhaka’s brothels

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Sold by traffickers, enslaved for years and raped many times a day … this is the life of tens of thousands of underage girls in Bangladesh’s capital. We hear their stories.

After five years in the brothel, Labonni stopped dreaming of being rescued. Ever since she had been sold to a madam at 13 years old, customers had promised to help her escape. None had followed through. Over time, their faces began to blur together, so she couldn’t remember exactly who had visited before, or how many men had come by that day. There’s usually one every hour, starting from 9am.

“Sometimes I wake up and I don’t understand why I’m not dead yet,” she says.

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Home Office to rewrite controversial advice on trafficked Nigerian women

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Claim that victims could return to Africa ‘wealthy and held in high regard’ sparked outrage

The Home Office is to rewrite guidance on handling asylum claims for women trafficked into the UK from Nigeria after it emerged the advice claimed victims could return to the African country “wealthy from prostitution” and “held in high regard”.

The comments were found in an official policy and information note on the trafficking of women from Nigeria, which is used by Home Office decision-makers dealing with protection and human rights claims.

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Women picking fruit for UK firms in Spain ‘victims of trafficking’

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Lawyers say abuse claims by Moroccans must be investigated by Spanish authorities

Human-rights lawyers are warning that abuse claims by Moroccans picking fruit in Spain for UK supermarkets could amount to “state-sponsored human trafficking”.

The international lawyers say Spanish authorities have a legal duty to ensure the allegations by the women – that they have faced exploitation and abuse while harvesting strawberries – are properly investigated by the courts.

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Cory Booker attacks Biden for ‘civil’ relationship with segregationist lawmakers – as it happened

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After the Senate majority leader dismissed the idea of reparations, Coates testified before Congress about ‘campaign of terror’ against black Americans

Closing out live coverage this evening, with an updated summary of today’s news from Amanda Holpuch and me:

Watch some of the key moments from today’s Congressional debate over reparations:

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Slavery reparations bill debated in US House hearing – video highlights

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The actor Danny Glover, writers Ta-Nehisi Coates and Coleman Hughes as well as Senator Cory Booker were among the witness at a congressional hearing on the original sin of the US – the enslavement of 4 million Africans and their descendants – and what can be done to atone for it via reparations

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‘Stain of slavery’: Congress debates reparations to atone for America’s original sin

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Danny Glover among witnesses who debated the legacy of slavery – and the modern scourges of inequality and poverty that afflict black Americans

For the first time in more than a decade, a debate has taken place between lawmakers in Congress on the original sin of the United States – the enslavement of 4 million Africans and their descendants – and the question of what can be done to atone for it through reparations.

Related: Nuclear weapons: experts alarmed by new Pentagon 'war-fighting' doctrine

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Reparations for slavery to get a hearing in Congress

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  • Writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and Actor Danny Glover to testify
  • House subcommittee will discuss issue on 19 June – ‘Juneteenth’

The topic of reparations for slavery is headed to Capitol Hill for its first hearing in more than a decade with the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and actor Danny Glover set to testify before a House of Representatives panel.

The House judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and civil liberties is scheduled to hold the hearing on 19 June, with its stated purpose “to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its continuing impact on the community and the path to restorative justice”.

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UK modern slavery helpline receives over 7,000 calls in a year

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Arrests and prosecutions remain thin on the ground despite 62% rise in reports of suspected labour exploitation

More than 7,100 suspected victims of modern slavery were identified across the UK in 2018, with Romanian nationals comprising the largest victim group, according to a national helpline.

Labour exploitation – the majority of which was identified in car washes, beauty parlours, construction sites, hotels and on farms – accounted for the largest number of suspected modern slavery cases, with London the location for the highest number of suspected victims (1,477), found the helpline’s second annual assessment, published on Thursday.

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Ancestry pulls ad that appears to romanticize slavery after backlash

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In the genealogy company’s commercial, a white man gives a black woman a ring and says they can ‘escape to the north’

Ancestry.ca, the Canadian outpost of the genealogy site Ancestry.com, has taken down an ad that was criticized for appearing to romanticize slavery. It was deemed an irresponsible retelling of an already reprehensible history.

ooooh my god LMAOOO who approved this ancestry commercial??? pic.twitter.com/Isy0k4HTMA

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