Category Archives: Slavery

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

The living hell of children trapped in Dhaka’s brothels

Posted on by
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.

Continue reading...

Home Office to rewrite controversial advice on trafficked Nigerian women

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by
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.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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:

Continue reading...

Slavery reparations bill debated in US House hearing – video highlights

Posted on by

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

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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

Continue reading...

Reparations for slavery to get a hearing in Congress

Posted on by
  • 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”.

Continue reading...

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

Posted on by

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.

Continue reading...

Ancestry pulls ad that appears to romanticize slavery after backlash

Posted on by

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

Continue reading...

How Scotland erased Guyana from its past

Posted on by

The portrayal of Scots as abolitionists and liberal champions has hidden a long history of profiting from slavery in the Caribbean.

The mangrove-fringed coast of Guyana, at the north-eastern tip of South America, does not immediately bring to mind the Highlands of Scotland, in the northernmost part of Great Britain. Guyana’s mudflats and silty brown coastal water have little in common with the lush green mountains and glens of the Highlands. If these landscapes share anything, it is their remoteness – one on the edge of a former empire burnished by the relentless equatorial sun and one on the edge of Europe whipped mercilessly by the Atlantic winds.

But look closer and the links are there: Alness, Ankerville, Belladrum, Borlum, Cromarty, Culcairn, Dingwall, Dunrobin, Fyrish, Glastullich, Inverness, Kintail, Kintyre, Rosehall, Tain, Tarlogie, a join-the-dots list of placenames (30 in all) south of Guyana’s capital Georgetown that hint of a hidden association with the Scottish Highlands some 5,000 miles away.

Continue reading...

App sounds alarm for slavery at UK hand carwash sites

Posted on by

People use Safe Car Wash app to report 930 suspected slavery cases in the period June to December last year

More than 900 drivers have reported potential cases of modern slavery involving workers at hand carwash services, using an app that makes it easy for people to sound the alarm if they have suspicions.

The Safe Car Wash app was launched last year. It gives users a checklist of questions to answer when visiting a hand carwash, including the price of the service (less than £6.70 is deemed suspicious), who takes the money, and whether the people washing cars look fearful. Depending on the answers, they may then be urged to make a report to the Modern Slavery helpline. The information collected by the app is shared anonymously with police and the Gangmasters & Labour Abuse Authority.

Continue reading...

Revealed: Vietnamese children vanish from Dutch shelters to be trafficked into Britain

Posted on by

Investigation highlights failings of Dutch and UK authorities to care properly for unaccompanied minors

On a crisp winter day in a small village in the north of the Netherlands, a pile of leaves swirls around in the wind outside a brick house, an ordinary scene except for the CCTV cameras outside the front door and the occupants inside – child victims of trafficking. Many of the children are from Vietnam. They live in this protected shelter to keep them safe from gangs who want to smuggle them out of the Netherlands to the UK.

But an investigation by the Observer and Argos Radio of the Netherlands has revealed that, in the past five years, at least 60 Vietnamese children have disappeared from these shelters. Dutch police and immigration officials suspect the children end up in the UK working on cannabis farms and in nail salons.

Continue reading...

Home Office limit on support for slavery victims may be unlawful, court rules

Posted on by

Judge orders immediate extension to safe housing, counselling and financial support beyond existing 45-day threshold

A high court judge has ruled that Home Office policy to cut off all statutory support to people six weeks after they have been formally identified as victims of slavery is potentially unlawful, ordering that assistance must immediately be extended.

All statutory support under the Modern Slavery Act, such as safe housing, counselling and financial support, currently ends 45 days after the Home Office has informed someone they have been officially recognised as a victim.

Continue reading...

First slavery ‘super-complaint’ accuses police of fuelling victims’ trauma

Posted on by

Report into police response in England and Wales found failure to handle cases sensitively hinders prosecution of traffickers

Categoric police failings are hindering the prosecution of human traffickers and barring victims of modern slavery from the support they are legally entitled to, according to a new super-complaint to the HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services.

The super-complaint – the first on modern slavery – has been submitted by London-based charity Hestia. It outlines how some police officers are not reporting cases of modern slavery to the Home Office and that a failure to sensitively handle cases of modern slavery is discouraging victims across England and Wales from supporting criminal investigations against their exploiters. The super-complaint system allows organisations to raise concerns on behalf of the public and confront fundamental issues.

Continue reading...

Workers making clothes for Australian brands can’t afford to eat, Oxfam reports

Posted on by

Women in Bangladesh and Vietnam working for Big W, Kmart, Target and Cotton On earning 51 cents an hour

Women in Bangladesh and Vietnam making clothes for the $23bn Australian fashion industry are going hungry because of wages as low as 51 cents an hour, an Oxfam report has found.

The aid group interviewed 470 garment workers employed at factories supplying brands such as Big W, Kmart, Target and Cotton On, and found 100% of surveyed workers in Bangladesh and 74% in Vietnam could not make ends meet.

Continue reading...

‘Surprising’ choice: police chief Sara Thornton tipped to be anti-slavery tsar

Posted on by

MPs raise fears over unconfirmed appointment that reflects focus on law enforcement rather than victims

MPs have expressed surprise over the appointment of one of Britain’s most senior police officers as Theresa May’s anti-slavery commissioner, eight months after the previous postholder resigned citing government interference.

Sara Thornton, chair of the National Police Chiefs’ Council, will take up the post later this year, the Sunday Times reported, although the Home Office did not confirm the appointment. A candidate would be “announced shortly” it said.

Continue reading...

Slavery in Britain: the photographer documenting the streets where people have been held

Posted on by

About 13,000 people are kept in slavery in the UK. Amy Romer’s book The Dark Figure* reveals the terrifying ordinariness of the sites of their captivity

In 2013, a 22-year-old Hungarian woman responded to an online ad for a babysitting job in London and, after a telephone interview, was offered the post. When she arrived in Budapest to travel to London, she was met by three men who confiscated her mobile, drove her to Slovakia and forced her on to a coach bound for Manchester.

There was no babysitting job. Instead, the woman had been “bought” for £3,500 by a Pakistani man and was told to prepare for marriage. After being held captive at various Manchester addresses, she finally alerted the police from a house in Cunliffe Street, Chorley, where she was rescued and later repatriated home.

Continue reading...

The Indian village where child sexual exploitation is the norm

Posted on by

Poverty and caste discrimination mean that children in Sagar Gram are being groomed by their own families for abuse

Many families in India still mourn the birth of a girl. But when Leena was born, people celebrated.

Sagar Gram, her village in central India, is unique that way. Girls outnumber boys. When a woman marries, it is the groom’s family that pays the dowry. Women are Sagar Gram’s breadwinners. When they are deemed old enough, perhaps at the age of 11, most are expected to start doing sex work.

Continue reading...