49 - History, Contemporary slavery.

History, Contemporary slavery.  China.  In March 2020, the Chinese government was found to be using the Uyghur minority for forced labour, inside sweat shops. According to a report published then by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), no fewer than around 80,000 Uyghurs were forcibly removed from the region of Xinjiang and used for forced labour in at least twenty-seven corporate factories.  According to the Business and Human Rights resource center, corporations such as Abercrombie & Fitch, Adidas, Amazon, Apple, BMW, Fila, Gap, H&M, Inditex, Marks & Spencer, Nike, North Face, Puma, PVH, Samsung, and UNIQLO have each sourced products from these factories prior to the publication of the ASPI report.  Libya.  During the Second Libyan Civil War, Libyans started capturing Sub-Saharan African migrants trying to get to Europe through Libya and selling them on slave markets or holding them hostage for ransom. Women are often raped, used as sex slaves, or sold to brothels. Child migrants suffer from abuse and child rape in Libya.  Mauritania.  Mauritania, was the last country to abolish slavery (in 1981), it is estimated that 20% of its population of 3 million people are enslaved as bonded labourers, with black Haratin being slaves and Berbers and Arabs the owners. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007. However, although slavery, as a practice, was legally banned in 1981, it was not a crime to own a slave until 2007. Although many slaves have escaped or have been freed since 2007, as of 2012, only one slave owner had been sentenced to serve time in prison.  North Korea.  North Korea's human rights record is often considered to be the worst in the world and has been globally condemned, with the United Nations, the European Union and groups such as Human Rights Watch all critical of the country's record. Forms of torture, forced labour, and abuses are all widespread. Most international human rights organizations consider North Korea to have no contemporary parallel with respect to violations of liberty.  Taiwan.  Taiwan's migrant worker population—estimated in 2018 to be up to 660,000 in number—have reportedly faced slavery-like conditions involving sexual abuse in the domestic work sector and forced labor in fishing sectors. Taiwan is among a minority of places in the world that legally allows labor brokers to charge migrant workers for services which elsewhere are covered by employers as human resource costs. A few Taiwanese universities have reportedly tricked students from Eswatini, Uganda and Sri Lanka into forced labour at factories as payment for the university programs. Some charity groups in 2007 also insisted that foreign women—mostly from China and Southeast Asia—were being forced into prostitution, although local police in Taiwan disagreed and said they deliberately came to Taiwan "to sell sex".  Yemen.  Despite being formally abolished in the 1960s, slavery in Yemen remains a significant issue exacerbated by ongoing conflict and socio-economic instability. An estimated 85,000 people remaining enslaved as of 2022. The Iran-backed Houthi militias have been accused of reinstating traditional slavery systems. Reports indicate that over 1,800 Yemenis have been forced into servitude by prominent Houthi leaders, with the Houthis dividing society into hierarchical classes of masters and slaves. This modern slavery encompasses various forms, such as forced labor, sexual exploitation, human trafficking, and child recruitment.    Vulnerable populations include the Al Muhamashīn community, Ethiopian migrants, and children who are subjected to severe discrimination and exploitation. Despite legal prohibitions against slavery in Yemen, enforcement is weak due to political instability and ongoing civil war. International organizations have documented these abuses, highlighting the need for stronger interventions to combat slavery and human trafficking in the region.  Economics.  While American slaves in 1809 were sold for around $40,000 (in inflation adjusted dollars), a slave nowadays can be bought for just $90, making replacement more economical than providing long-term care. Slavery is a multibillion-dollar industry with estimates of up to $35 billion generated annually.  Trafficking.  Victims of human trafficking are typically recruited through deceit or trickery (such as a false job offer, false migration offer, or false marriage offer), sale by family members, recruitment by former slaves, or outright abduction. Victims are forced into a "debt slavery" situation by coercion, deception, fraud, intimidation, isolation, threat, physical force, debt bondage or even force-feeding with drugs to control their victims. "Annually, according to U.S. government-sponsored research completed in 2006, approximately 800,000 people are trafficked across national borders, which does not include millions trafficked within their own countries. Approximately 80% of transnational victims are women and girls, and up to 50% are minors, reports the U.S. State Department in a 2008 study.  While the majority of trafficking victims are women who are forced into prostitution (in which case the practice is called sex trafficking), victims also include men, women and children who are forced into manual labour. Because of the illegal nature of human trafficking, its extent is unknown. A U.S. government report, published in 2005, estimates that about 700,000 people worldwide are trafficked across borders each year. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally.   Another research effort revealed that roughly 1.5 million individuals are trafficked either internally or internationally each year, of which about 500,000 are sex trafficking victims.  Wikipedia: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License.This episode includes AI-generated content.