Tag: Slavery

Modern Slavery … In Israel?

The U.S. State Department recently released a report on the continuing remnants of trafficking in human beings. Modern slavery in Sudan and other countries in Africa has received substantial press coverage, as has the trafficking in women and children in Asia. But I was genuinely surprised to see Israel listed as a country which does not meet the State Department’s minimum requirements on human trafficking and is not making significant progress toward compliance. It’s joined by countries like Sudan, Kazakhstan, and Burma.

The State Department summarizes the current situation in Israel:

Israel is a destination country for trafficked persons, primarily women. Women are trafficked to Israel from the New Independent States (specifically Moldova, Russia, and Ukraine), Brazil, Turkey, South Africa, and some countries in Asia.

The Government of Israel does not meet the minimum standards for combating trafficking in persons, and has not yet made significant efforts to combat the problem, although it has begun to take some steps to do so. The Government recognizes that trafficking in persons is a problem, but devotes limited resources to combating it. NGO’s and some concerned government officials have criticized the Government for failing to undertake vigorous efforts against trafficking, especially given the occasional violent methods of traffickers and the significant numbers of women who are trafficked into the country. In June 2000, the Knesset amended a 1997 prostitution law to prohibit the buying or selling of persons, or forcing a person to leave their country of residence to engage in prostitution. The penalties for rape and violation of the 1997 prostitution law require roughly a doubling of the sentence if the victim is a minor. The Government has convicted one trafficker under the new legislation. The Government has provided training to immigration officials at Ben Gurion airport. The Government has not formally begun cooperation with other governments on trafficking cases, but has worked with Ukrainian officials on one trafficking case. The Government has not conducted anti-trafficking information campaigns or other efforts aimed at prevention. Little protection is provided to trafficked persons. Victims of trafficking are detained, jailed in a special women’s prison separate from other female prisoners, and deported. Victims who are willing to testify against traffickers may be granted relief from immediate deportation, but the Government does not actively encourage victims to raise charges against traffickers. Israeli NGO’s have encouraged victims to take legal action. Some victims have accused individual police officers of complicity with brothel owners and traffickers. The Government provides limited funding to NGO’s for assistance to victims.

Other countries with close ties to the United States who are non-compliant and not making significant efforts to combat trafficking include Greece, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, and Turkey.

The Worldwide Traffic in Human Beings

The U.S. State Department recently released the first of a series of annual reports on the worldwide trafficking of human beings. According to the “Trafficking in Persons Report,” about 700,000 people — mostly women and children — are pressed into this modern form of slavery every year.

The report grades countries around the world based on their compliance with international treaties designed to prevent such trafficking. The report divides countries into three tiers, with Tier 3 being countries whose legal systems do not comply and are not making significant progress to achieving compliance. The list of Tier 3 countries includes Albania, Bahrain, Belarus, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Burma, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Greece, Indonesia, Israel, Kazakhstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Sudan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Several of the countries on that list, of course, are close allies of the United States.

The victims of such trafficking end up working as cheap labor in construction sites or clothing factories, while many of the women involved in the trade are forced into prostitution. At a press conference announcing the release of the report, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the ongoing trafficking in human beings an “abomination against humanity.”

Source:

US decries ‘modern-day slavery’. The BBC, July 12, 2001.

Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000: Trafficking in Persons Report. The United States Department of State, 2001.

Slavery in 20th Century America

Over the past couple years I’ve been a bit obsessed about the history of slavery and one of these days am actually going to have time to get working on the web site I started on the topic.

Anyway, David Bloomberg has written a very good review of Gregory Freeman’s excellent book, Lay This Body Down, which is about the horrific murder of 11 black men in 1921 who were trapped in a slave-like system called peonage –essentially they were forced to work to pay off completely bogus debts.

Even though slavery was technically outlawed within the United States at the conclusion of the Civil War, peonage was not fully outlawed until about 1910, and continued for decades after that in parts of the South.

There have been a number of excellent books about this topic, including Pete Daniel’s The Shadow of Slavery : Peonage in the South, 1901-1969 and the out-of-print, The Peonage files of the U.S. Department of Justice, 1901-1945, which as its title suggests presents documents and information from the FBI’s investigations into peonage (it was just such an investigation that led to the murder of the 11 men in Georgia — the white plantation owner wanted to destroy the evidence, which happened to be the black men he forced to work for him).

People interested in the topic can also find a first hand account of the peonage system on the web —Peonage in the South: The Life Story of a Negro Peon — taken from a 1906 compilation.