people in bondage....Contemporary forms of human bondage include such practices as forced labor, servile marriage, debt bondage, child labor, and forced prostitution. Modern slaves can be concubines, camel jockeys, or cane cutters."

INDIA - THE CARPET SLAVES

These children work from toddlerhood to adolescence, from dawn to dusk, in horrid conditions. Harvey's group (International Labor Rights and Education Fund) describes the scene: "Children work in damp pits near the loom. Potable water is often unavailable and food consists of a few chapatis [bread balls], onions and salt. Common practice is to keep the children hungry so they will stay awake and work longer hours. The children often are made to sleep on the ground next to their looms, or in nearby sheds. After working from ten to fourteen hours, they are expected to clean out their sheds and set up work for the next day."  ....

Kailash Satyarthi rescues child slaves. He was shown on American TV in 1995 leading raids on loom masters. Satyarthi explains that children become carpet slaves in several ways. About 10 percent are kidnapped, simply stolen off the streets like Santosh. Another group may be given over to labor contractors who falsely promise that the children will be educated and cared for while being taught a trade. 

Finally, many children are entrapped in a system of debt bondage still widespread in Asia and the subcontinent. ... 

Is there any hope? In February 1993, a consortium of European and Asian rights groups began the RugMark Campaign, which licenses exporters and manufacturers and affixes the
"RugMark" -- sort of a union label certifying carpets made without the use of child labor. 

..... 

HAITI - SUGAR SLAVES

Next time you add sugar to your coffee, think of Andre Prevot. A Haitian, Prevot met a man who promised him a good job nearby in the Dominican Republic (DR). But, as we've seen with the Asian slavers, this is a classic lure. "He took me across the border and sold me to the Dominican soldiers for $8," explains Prevot. Once in their custody, he suffered the fate of thousands of his countrymen who are forced against their will to cut cane for six or seven months -- from December to June -- for little or no money. 

.... Their belongings are confiscated, and they are handed machetes. To eat, they must work. They cannot leave. If they try to escape, they may be beaten. 

Armed guards come for the sugar slaves at 5:00 a.m., banging on the doors with rifle butts. The men are taken into the fields to harvest cane for 12 or 14 hours under a brutal sun. Sharp cane leaves cut into their skin. They eat dried fish and rice and are permitted to drink the juice of sugarcane. 

....
SOUTHEAST ASIA - SEX SLAVES

"Lin-Lin" was 13 when her mother died. Her father took her to a job placement agency, which promised to get her a good job, and took $480 as an advance on her earnings. Instead she was taken to a brothel, where she sits in a windowed room with a number. Clients pay the owner $4 an hour for her. She cannot leave until she pays off her debt, which is her cost to the brothel owner, plus interest and expenses. 

If "Lin-Lin" refuses to take care of her clients, she might be beaten, burned with cigarettes, or have her head immersed in water until she relents. If she tries to escape, she might be killed.

Of the $4, she theoretically gets about $1.60, plus tips. The owner keeps her money... and the records. "Lin-Lin" will be there a long time. 

Hundreds of thousands of Asia's children, mostly girls but also boys, have been taken from their homes and delivered to bordellos, where they fuel a sex industry that thrives in great part by servicing Western and Japanese men. ....

MAURITANIA AND SUDAN - CHATTEL SLAVERY

Hard as it is to believe that debt bondage, forced labor, and child prostitution flourish around the globe, it is harder to believe that pure chattel slavery still exits. In Sudan and Mauritania, two countries that straddle the Arab-African divide, a person can become the property of another for life, bought and sold, traded and inherited, branded and bred. Alang Ajak was 10 years old when she was captured and made a slave. She was taken in a raid on her village in southern Sudan and was branded when her master's wife feared she would "get lost." A hot iron pot was pressed to her leg. She has just recently escaped. 

In Sudan, Africa's biggest country, chattel slavery is making a comeback, the result of a 18-year-old war waged by the Muslim north against the black Christian and animist south. Arab militias, armed by the government, have been raiding African villages, shooting the men and enslaving the women and children. The latter are kept as personal property or marched north and sold. ASI reports that there is probably "no village in the north without its kidnapped black slaves." 

In March 1994, the special UN human-rights monitor, Gaspar Biro, reported the existence in Sudan of what he said might be called modern-day slave markets. Like any commodity, the price of human flesh in Sudan has varied with supply. In 1988, one automatic weapon could be traded for six or seven child slaves. In 1989, a woman or child from the Dinka tribe -- an exceedingly tall and proud pastoral people of the Nile -- could be bought for $90. Some of the children are trucked to Libya, according to the U.S. Embassy in Khartoum. 

The fate of these slaves is unspeakable. Not only are their bodies in bondage, but they are stripped of their cultural, religious, and personal identities. According to an ASI report: "Kon, a thirteen-year-old Dinka boy, was abducted by Arab nomads and taken to a merchant's house. There he found several Dinka men hobbling, their Achilles tendons cut because they refused to become Muslims. Threatened with the same treatment, the boy converted." Kon was lucky to have escaped: Others who are caught trying are castrated or branded like cattle. 

Mauritania has outlawed slavery three times. But this former French colony of only two million people probably contains the world's largest concentration of chattel slaves. In 1993, the U.S. State Department estimated that up to 90,000 blacks live as the property of North African Arabs (known as Beydanes, or white Moors). Other sources add 300,000 part-time and ex-slaves, known as haratins, many of whom continue to serve their owners out of fear or need. Local anti-slavery group El Hor ("The Free") estimates that as many as one million haratins.

The slaves are chattel. They are used for house or farm labor, for sex, and for breeding. They may be exchanged for camels, trucks, guns, or money. Their children are the property of the master. They are born, live, and die as slaves. Africans in Mauritania were converted to Islam over 100 years ago, but though the Koran forbids the enslavement of fellow Muslims, in this case race outranks religious doctrine. Indeed, the black Muslim slaves of Mauritania are generally forbidden to share the basic rights of Muslims in even the poorest of countries: They may not marry, attend school, or go to mosque. 

In 1990, the widely respected Human Rights Watch/Africa reported that "routine" punishments for the slightest fault include beatings, denial of food, and prolonged exposure to the sun with hands and feet tied together. "Serious" infringement of the master's rule are met with a variety of tortures, including "the insect treatment." Tiny ants are stuffed into the ears, which are sealed with stones and bound with a scarf. Hands and feet are tied and the errant slave is left for several days, after which, the rights group reports, he will do what he is told. 

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