Disposable People: What Can we Do

1. Disposable People: What Can we Do?

2. Bonded laborers making bricks in Pakistan and India work all day, everyday, and into the night. While much of the business is honest, it can and is easily converted from a system of advance payment and piecework into a system of enslavement that turns brickworkers into slaves.

3. Two methods of enslaving bonded or debt laborers are most common: Managers dishonestly manipulate the debt and piece rate to keep the family permanently in debt; they can never pay it off, no matter how hard they work. Managers use violence to support enslavement.

4. Contract bondage is often combined with debt bondage to enslave young girls into prostitution. Poor parents who are offered well- paid work for their daughters and given a large sum up front. They enter into a contractual agreement in which the parents agree to repay the loan before their daughter is free to leave or is allowed to send money home. The daughter must pay for all her expenses which are added to her debt. The total debt becomes impossible to repay. The brothel owner recovers the cost of buying a girl in 2-3 months; within a few months, the girl becomes disposable.

5. Chattel slaves, especially those living in north and west Africa, are similar to Southern plantation slavery; they are owned and born into slavery. In Mauritania, white Moor masters feel a certain responsibility and obligation to their black African slaves. They believe their slaves are children who need care and guidance. The government denies the existence of slavery, and foreign nations turn a blind eye to its pervasive influence. This Nigerian girl is a chattel slave; note her anklet which indicates her slave status.This Nigerian girl is a chattel slave; note her anklet which indicates her slave status.

6. What can we do? Learn about slavery and recognize it for what it is - a highly profitable business in which the slaveholder exploits people who are economically vulnerable - and understand that it is a separate and distinct type of human rights abuse. We have to name the problem of slavery rather than treat it as one of many other human rights abuses. We have to name the problem of slavery rather than treat it as one of many other human rights abuses.

7. What can we do? Support global policies to educate and protect those living in poverty so they are less vulnerable to enslavement.

8. What can we do? Understand that the only way to combat slavery is to make it unprofitable, and in so doing, change our buying habits. India has made some progress in the rug and carpet making industry with its RugMark Campaign. To have the RugMark seal on their product, producers agree not to exploit children, to cooperate with independent monitors, and to turn over 1% of the carpet wholesale price to a welfare fund for child workers.