New Year's Wish: Let There Be Peace

Let there be Peace on Earth, and let it begin with me...

Enslaved Children Freed From Russian Factory

The following story may sound like it's lifted from the plot of a horror film, but news reports like this one from Russia are, sadly, all too common.

Immigrant children forced to work as slave labourers in an illegal clothes factory near Moscow have been freed in a police operation.

Fifteen minors from Kyrgyzstan had their documents taken away and were made to work day and night under 24-hour guard.

On a diet of bread and mayonnaise, they were punished for disobeying orders or refusing to man the sewing machines in the windowless cellar of an industrial complex in Noginsk, not far from the Russian capital.

The youngsters, all aged between 11 and 17, were recruited from poor families.

Parents were told the children would receive fair pay and be provided with appropriate accommodation. Instead they lived in squalor in the heat and dust of the factory floor.

Several adult Kyrgyz nationals were arrested in the police raid.

For every child rescued, we wonder: how many remain to be found?

Inspiring Example Set By Illinois Teens

An inspiring story to rekindle one's belief in the possibility of a hopeful future, to balance the depression and pessimism that the perennial bad news of the scope of modern-day slavery tends to bring upon us, story after story tempting us to say "nothing can be done".

Well, here's news of a group of US high school students who seem to have declared that they will make a difference, by launching a program to fight Human Trafficking.

The Illinois students took the initiative to organize an outreach event for their fellow students and other members of their community, to "educate and motivate them to action".

The students arranged for a screening of the human trafficking documentary "At The End Of Slavery: The Battle For Justice In Our Time"; distribution of information about charities such as Free2Play, which helps children who have been victims of trafficking and/or forced labor; manning tables selling fair trade coffee and teas acquired through the organization Trade As One, which help the poorer citizens of nations plagued with slave labor to a degree hard for us to imagine in North America.

Also on the agenda was a presentation by North Park University Professor Boaz Johnson, on his first-hand experiences of seeing the prevalence of slavery in India. Professor Johnson mentioned how inspiring it was to see the young people in action, which brings the story full circle, as it was an earlier talk by Johnson himself which inspired the high school students to investigate what they could do to make a difference, and dare to believe that they could break the chains of slavery.

Pakistan's Bonded Laborers Sell Their Own Kidneys To Escape Debts

Pakistan's modern-day slavers ensnare their workers under so much debt, that the bonded laborers are resorting to selling their kidneys through illegal transplant operations in desperate bids to escape their servitude. It is estimated that three quarters of the country's annual 2,000 kidney operations are illegal, and horrifically exploitative:

Millions of Pakistanis live in bonded labour. Some sell kidneys in the hope of paying back cash advances from landlords and freeing themselves from their modern-day slavery.

Bones jutting out of his skin, Mohammad Ilyas became the fourth person in a family of 11 to sell a kidney in an effort to pay off a loan near Islamabad.

‘I saw a big bucket full of knives, cutters and scissors... I got scared. I thought about running away but all the doors were locked and I was surrounded by half a dozen men who were about to cut my body,’ he said.

Debt bondage is said to be a major problem in Pakistan's carpet weaving, and brick-making, businesses:

In Pakistan, human rights groups say kiln owners often dupe the poor into bonded labor by giving them loans. Families agree to work off the debt but their bosses add on high interest and living expenses, making it impossible to repay debt, as their salaries are often less than $5 a day.

Holy Night: "Chains Shall He Break..."

John Sullivan Dwight (1813-1893): Unitarian minister, Transcendalist, music critic,
abolitionist.

Here's a fresh look at a piece of wondrous, classic Christmas music:
O Holy Night.

Originally a french composition by Placide Cappeau, it was translated into english in by a man who shared the frenchman's deep-rooted abolitionist sentiments. As far back as 1837 Dwight had been preaching against slavery, delivering sermons on the great evil in-between more tranquil moments spent translating poetry by Goethe and Schiller. And there was music, always music: Dwight went on to publish, for four decades, the influential Journal Of Music: A Paper On Art And Literature.

In 1855 he is said to have first published his translation of Cappeau's French piece, "Minuit, Chretiens" ["Midnight, Christians"]. Today, we stop short from singing the piece in its original form... even though the Christmas wish expressed in its second half still applies in our time:

O holy night! The stars are brightly shining,
It is the night of Our dear Saviour's birth.
Long lay the world In sin and error pining,
'Til He appear'd And the soul felt its worth.
A thrill of hope The weary world rejoices,
For yonder breaks A new and glorious morn.

Fall on your knees! O, hear the angels' voices!
O night divine, O night when Christ was born;
O night divine, O night, O night Divine.

Led by the light of Faith serenely beaming,
With glowing hearts By His cradle we stand.
So led by light of A star sweetly gleaming,
Here come the wise men From Orient land.
The King of Kings Lay thus in lowly manger;
In all our trials Born to be our friend.

He knows our need, To our weakness is no stranger,
Behold your King! Before Him lowly bend!
Behold your King, Before Him lowly bend!

He taught us To love one another;
His law is love And His gospel is peace.
Chains shall He break For the slave is our brother;
And in His name All oppression shall cease.
Sweet hymns of joy In grateful chorus raise we,
Let all within us Praise His holy name.

Christ is the Lord! O praise His Name forever,
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.
His power and glory Evermore proclaim.

Uganda Horror: Trafficking Children For Human Sacrifice

Where to begin with this story; police in Uganda are struggling to resolve the growing number of children being abducted and murdered by witchdoctors in ritualistic acts of human sacrifice.

Back in February, the British publication The Independant carried a detailed background report on the unfathomable crime wave. From their interview with Timothy Opobo, programme coordinator with the Ugandan Chapter of the Africa Network for the Prevention and Protection Against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANPPCAN):

“For a long time, sacrificing has been done in secrecy. Child sacrifice centres on witchcraft,” says Timothy Opobo. “Today, sacrificing children appears to be exposed because traditional healers and herbalists are everywhere. So witchdoctors have taken advantage of the traditional herbalists by hiding under that umbrella and have advertised in the media.”
...“Children are vulnerable and are believed to be pure – this is why they are being sacrificed”.

Opobo says that poverty is leading people come to believe they are cursed, that witchdoctors prey on that belief and convince family members to kill their children, and the children of others, in order to relieve themselves of that curse. The article lists a handful of the cases investigated in late 2008:

Shs 50,000 [$26 US, $28 CDN] was enough to tempt Patrick Makonzi to chop the head off his 12-year-old nephew, Eriya Kalule, of Namusita village in Kamuli District on Boxing Day. That same month, a boda-boda cyclist in Masajja, Wakiso district, beheaded his twin children for Shs 12 million [$6,266 US, $6,724 CDN]. In another bizarre case, Ssenoga Setubwa, 21, stole a child from Bwaise and sold him for Shs 100,000 [$52 US, $56 CDN].

The Masajja murderer told Ugandan media outlet The Observer back in August that "a rich man had asked him for his twins in exchange for Shs 50million, a deal Mugerwa agreed to; prompting him to behead the three-year olds."

In this connection, the African news site All Africa reports that Uganda's newest Police Inspector General, Major General Kale Kayihura, has reshuffled the ranks of the police force in order to achieve greater efficiencies in resolving this and other ongoing criminal problems plaguing their nation. Several hundred new cadets are replacing senior officers, in the hope that progress can be made... starting with better policing of law enforcement officers and government officials themselves:

The Minister of Internal Affairs, Kirunda Kivejinja recently said the police report into ritual murders named government workers as some of the people behind the recent spate of ritual murders.

Yet it's not just the poor that are trying to buy their way out of their penury through the ritualistic murder of children.

Throughout 2009 Uganda has witnessed the high-profile court case of "philanthropist" Kato Kajubi, an international businessman accused of organizing the beheading of a 12-year old boy lured away from his poverty-stricken village with promises of better education and a job at Kajubi's chicken farm. The court was told that the murdered boy was the first of three children Kajubi was said to have wanted for his ritual. The 12-year old child's body was later found at the construction site of one of Kajubi's newly-built properties, in fulfillment of some sick superstitution that such placement would herald good luck for the owner by dispelling bad spirits.

Human sacrifice is increasingly being seen as a worthy means to get-rich-quick ends, according to Florence Kirabira, Acting Head of Child and Family Protection Unit:

Some of those obsessed with getting rich quick are ready to do anything, including killing –if that is what the witchdoctor recommends - to reach their goal.
“It’s a difficult and complex situation where children have been sacrificed because of an urge for people to get wealthy. We have people who believe in getting rich [at all costs],” Kirabira says.
According to James Ongom, an investigating officer, 40 children have lost their lives to ritual killings this year alone. Out of these cases, 15 have so far been investigated, but no one has been convicted.

How does one imagine the pain and grief endured in such a place? My heart cries out for victims like this mother of four, who came home from the market only to find her beheaded six-month old baby boy in a plastic bag, murdered by the baby's own father, her 30-year old husband:

“I wanted my son to become an engineer,” she says amid sobs. “I cannot believe that the man I was living with, the father of my children, was the devil.”

[Thanks to Norfolk Human Rights Examiner and Liberia Past and Present for this story]

An Excellent Resource

I'd like to recommend Youngbee Kim's magnificient resource on the evil of human trafficking. Her Norfolk Human Rights Examiner posts for Examiner.com are going to be daily must-reads for me. Every day she diligently assembles a series of links and articles from international stories on the subject of modern-day slavery, with some occasional snowflakes of good news mixed in with the avalanche of bad.

Truth be told, if I had known about her thorough work before, I may not have started my own blog, she does such a good job on bringing some needed attention to the scope of this problem.

If every news site, online or otherwise, devoted resources to tracking local and/or national stories on this subject, think of how much better informed the public would be on this issue.

So get the word out, and visit Youngbee's excellent blog!

Modern-Day Slavers Preying On Famine-Stricken Women And Children In Kenya

Promises coated in the cruelest of lies are luring thousands of victims into lives of modern slavery, as small East African towns shattered by famine and poverty are being visited by human traffickers recruiting women and children for sexual exploitation, turning Kenya into a "notorious transit point" in human cargo fed with false hopes for better lives:

The Kenyan coast has been identified as being a notorious transit point for traffickers where children work as prostitutes and beach boys.
...
Investigations have established that trafficking is now being extended to smaller towns like Samburu, Makueni, Marereni and Ukambani due to famine and poverty.
Other places include areas where victims of the post election skirmishes have pitched tents.
"Unscrupulous people go to these areas and try to provide alternatives for the victims hence trafficking them," says Mr Japheth Kasimbu, IOM counter-trafficking officer.
... [Mr Paul Adhoch, the Executive Director of Trace, a counter trafficking organisation based in Mombasa] says that 6,000 to 9,000 people are trafficked annually in Coast Province with a third of them being children.
"Mombasa is a source, destination and route of trafficking. Individuals, especially girls from as far as Uganda, Tanzania and DR Congo come to Kenya with hopes of linking up with rich tourists but some of them unfortunately turn them into sex slaves," he says.
According to an officer at African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect (ANNAPCAN), an organisation that helps victims of cross-border trafficking at Tarakea, on the Kenya-Tanzania border, trafficking is caused by unemployment.
...
"Brothels and massage parlours have turned to be exploitation dens for foreign young women. Victims are trafficked from Rwanda, Democratic republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Uganda and Somalia and are coerced to work in these establishments, increasing their vulnerability to sexual exploitation or forced into prostitution," he says.

Rescued Minnesota Slave: Her Story

“Your neighbor could be a slave without you knowing. Your co-worker could be a slave without you knowing. Your patients could be slaves without you knowing."

Bukola Oriola shared her dramatic story with an audience of 140 Minnesotans, in the heart of a state listed as the 13th most heavily trafficked state in the US.

Stories like Oriola's may seem difficult to believe, at first hearing, making it all the more important for the truth to be spread, so that the world can learn:


“We still have slavery among us.”

[Bukola Oriola] was working as a journalist in Nigeria when she came to the United States to report on the 2005 World Summit in New York. Her new husband, a U.S. citizen, convinced her to stay in the country with the promise that he would help her acquire the spousal visa she needed to live here legally.

The couple were married in a traditional ceremony in Nigeria, but not legally in the United States.

Once Oriola moved into her husband’s Minnesota home, he changed. He kept her imprisoned in the house for two years, punishing her if she “misbehaved” and threatening to report her to immigration officials if she tried to escape.

“I became so depressed that I couldn’t recognize myself in the mirror anymore,” Oriola said. “I just saw a strange woman staring back at me.”

When she became pregnant, Oriola’s husband forced her to spend up to 14 hours a day on her feet braiding hair. He collected her earnings, but refused to support her or their child. When the baby’s health began to deteriorate, Oriola found the courage to escape.

“My son was the one that gave me strength to leave to see another day,” Oriola said at a Dec. 3 human trafficking forum organized by St. Mary of the Lake in White Bear Lake.

A client helped Oriola and her son move into a shelter. Civil Society, a St. Paul non-profit organization that provides legal services, counseling and other assistance to victims of human trafficking, helped Oriola legalize her immigration status through the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act.
...
“I didn’t know that help was available,” she added. “That is why I am speaking out today . . . to educate the public, to set others free.”
Oriola, 32, has written a book entitled “Imprisoned: The Travails of a Trafficked Victim” to help inform people about the little known global phenomenon of human trafficking.

Women Sold As Sex Slaves In Calgary Alberta

The slave next door: Two female sex slaves offered for sale at $5,000 each were purchased for $8,000 as a package deal in Calgary, Alberta, by undercover police posing as aspiring pimps.

Police allege the [case] revealed a human trafficking ring that operated out of three homes and used a hair salon as a front to receive calls from customers and arrange transactions involving sex with young girls for money.
Since September, vice detectives have been working with Canada Border Services Agency, investigating the operation and monitoring Alternative Hair Design at 4105 4th St. N.W.
Undercover officers were offered two teenage girls from China for sale at $5,000 each, police say. The victims, who were sold to the undercover police for $8,000, were actually 25 and 41 years old.
"It's a shocking thing to see humans traded for money, and for a relatively low amount of money," said Supt. Roger Chaffin.
"There's lots of money to be made and there's no limit on lowered morality, the fact that you could sell people for profit," said Chaffin.

Graveyard Of 10,000 Slaves Found On Island Of St-Helena

St-Helena, the South Atlantic island known to the world as the answer to trivia questions about Napoleon's final exile, finds itself thrust into the news spotlight this week, as a mass graveyard of former slaves has been uncovered there during preparations for the construction of a commercial airport for the remote British territory.

Halfway between the decaying slave forts of West Africa and the overgrown plantations of the New World, on the tiny island of St Helena, archaeologists have uncovered one of the largest slave graveyards anywhere in the world.
The bones of some 10,000 young Africans lie buried in the rocky valleys of this isolated British territory in the South Atlantic, victims of the ruthless trade that Britain dominated in the 18th century but fought to suppress after the abolition of slavery.
A team of British archaeologists uncovered the first graves last year after preparation had begun to build an access road to the site of the planned new airport on St Helena.
The bodies, many of them children, were discovered where they had been buried after being brought to St Helena between 1840 and 1874 by Royal Navy patrols hunting the slavers. The captured ships were forced into the island where the traders were arrested and their victims liberated. By then, however, many were already dead in the fetid holds where they had been packed together for the long journey.
Many of the survivors also died soon after they were brought to Rupert’s Valley, near the capital Jamestown. It was used as a treatment and holding depot by the navy’s West Africa Squadron. Smallpox, dysentery and other diseases claimed many of those who had endured hunger, thirst and the terrible conditions below decks.
The discovery of so many bones is of enormous importance in researching the history of slavery. Few graves have been found of captives who died before they were sold in Cuba, Brazil, the United States and other parts of the New World.
...
Some 325 skeletons have been excavated. They are now being examined by a research team in Jamestown to determine their age, sex, life history and cause of death. So far, the vast majority have been males, with a significant proportion of children or young adults, some less than a year old.
...
Many of the young captives appear to have had a hard-working life before being shipped out of Africa. Between 1840 and 1850, 15,000 Africans were landed on St Helena, of whom nearly 5,000 died. The liberation centre did not finally close until 1874.

There's an interesting (although indirect) connection between St-Helena's most famous resident, and slavery. Here's the story, as chronicled in the fascinating 1824 book The History of the Island Of St-Helena, from the discovery by the Portugese to the year 1823.

On October 15th 1814, the HMS Northumberland deposited the captive Napoleon Bonaparte on the island of St-Helena, much to the surprise of its government officials, who weren't informed of their important new guest until a few days before, the news being carried by a faster ship sailing ahead of the naval escort.

Fast forward to April 14, 1816 and the arrival of Sir Hudson Lowe as the island's new Lieutenant-Governor. On his agenda: the emancipation of the island's slaves, an objective he approached cautiously, to allow him the ability to "... judge of the fittest mode to carry his purpose into execution." [pg 394]

At a meeting convened on the 13th of August 1818, Governor Lowe proposes that children born of slave parents, after a fixed period, become free. This outline was agreed to in a meeting lasting only ten minutes. Four days later, the committee in charge of fine-tuning the details of the agreement laid out the rest of the plan: “By this law, all children born of a slave woman, from and after Christmas Day 1818, are free, but to be considered as apprentices to the proprietors of the mothers, if males, until the age of eighteen years, and if females, until sixteen; and that masters and mistresses are to enforce the attendance of free-born children at church and at the Sunday schools." [pg 396]

St-Helena’s movement for the abolition of slavery coincided with Napoleon’s presence on the island. (He died, poisoned or otherwise, in 1821.) It’s tempting to wonder what the architect of the Napoleonic Code, which returned the practice of slavery to the French colonies, thought about it all.

How To Break The Chains Of Child Prostitution

"We, as a society, will not tolerate what basically amounts to selling these kids as sex slaves," said Arthur Balizan, special agent in charge of the FBI in Oregon. His remark was made after Operation Cross Country IV, a seasonal attempt to rescue children from the hellish bondage of sexual slavery in the United States of America. Sweeping raids are conducted in targeted areas of the country as part of the FBI's Innocence Lost National Initiative, in partnership with local law enforcement officials and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The latest result: 52 children freed from sexual slavery.

To date, the 34 Innocence Lost Task Forces and Working Groups have recovered nearly 900 children from the streets. The investigations and subsequent 510 convictions have resulted in lengthy sentences, including multiple 25-years-to-life sentences and the seizure of more than $3.1 million in assets.

Some newspapers are now following up on the current fate of the children rescued from prostitution; they report that one month later, very few of the victims are "receiving the help experts say is necessary to overcome such trauma and rejoin society."

The victims need intensive residential treatment, experts say, and only three such programs exist.
...
Lois Lee, founder of a 24-bed Los Angeles shelter called Children of the Night, sees the problems firsthand.
"When America's child prostitutes are identified by the FBI or police, they are incarcerated for whatever reason possible, whether it be an unrelated crime or 'material witness hold,' " she said. "Then they are dumped back in the dysfunctional home, ill-equipped group home or foster care, and [often] disappear back into the underground of prostitution with no voice."
...
Experts say that sex-trafficking victims struggle to find the care they need once they escape from an industry that may involve at least 100,000 U.S. children.
Donna Hughes, a women's studies professor at the University of Rhode Island who has researched U.S. sex trafficking, said domestic victims are shortchanged by the attention authorities and advocacy groups give to the illegal importation of foreign prostitutes.
"We need more treatment programs," she said. "There are a number of different programs that have existed for years, but they need more support."
Lisa Goldblatt Grace, who consulted on a 2007 study for the Health and Human Services Department, said child victims "lack a safe, stable place to live, and that's part of what made them vulnerable to begin with."
Grace is program director of the My Life My Choice Project, a nonprofit focused on reaching out to adolescent girls most vulnerable to commercial sexual exploitation.
The Health and Human Services Department study found only four residential treatment centers in the United States for child prostitutes, with a total of 45 beds.
...
[Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children ]said U.S. child victims numbered between 100,000 and 300,000.

The human race's capacity for inflicting cruelty upon itself knows no bounds; imagine the suffering of a young life so filled with misery that the evil of slavery can come to be seen as the Lesser of Evils...

Was Justice Done In Topeka Kansas?

Complicated case in Topeka, Kansas.

The owner of an Indian restaurant has been sentenced to three concurrent 18-month jail terms for harboring "unauthorized workers for commercial advantage or private financial gain", all 3 of whom were Indian nationals.

When the story first broke last year, the charges against 33-year old Amarpreet "Latti" Singh also included allegations that some of his restaurant staff were virtually being treated as slaves. None of these allegations of coercion ended up being proven in court, however, due to conflicting testimony presented at the trial.

According to an April press release from the US Department of Justice, "[p]rosecutors also presented evidence that the defendant withheld workers’ wages and identification documents. Workers were required to work long hours six days a week at the restaurant and live in an apartment the defendant provided."

The trial was triggered by the death of one of the owner's staff at this apartment:

One employee, Jacinta Sebastian Pereria, 45, whose body was found April 28, 2008, in a Topeka apartment Singh rented for his employees, had previously complained he was forced to work at the restaurant. Pereria died of acute pneumonia caused by bacteria, according to court records.

Earlier reports of Singh's indictment provide some contradictory accounts of that living and working relationship:

Jancintra Sebastian Pereria entered the United States with a tourist visa in June 2005. In April 2008, investigators said he was working nearly 70 hours per week as a waiter at the Globe making about $1,200 a month, occasionally wiring money to his wife. While he told the informant he wanted to return to India, Pereria said Singh wouldn't allow him to do so.
... Police discovered [Pereria] in the bathroom of the residence wearing a waiter's uniform from the Globe [restaurant]. The affidavit states Singh initially denied Pereria worked for him, despite keeping the man's identification and passport at the restaurant. Court documents state Singh told police Pereria was a homeless drunk he took in because they happened to have a common Indian origin.

At the trial, testimony given by a special agent of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Pereria's unlawful working conditions was countered by a Topeka attorney's statements on behalf of the accused restaurant owner. The defense witness, "[...who] has known Singh for five years and eaten at the restaurant on a daily basis, said he never saw Singh threaten or coerce his employees. "It was a collegial relationship that I saw," Benson said. Singh treated employees with respect and sponsored a birthday party for Pereria, which was "well received" by Pereria and other employees, he said. Benson was one of six witnesses who testified on Singh's behalf."

What is a bystander to make of this story? Who are we to believe? Character witnesses saying that the accused is a nice guy and a good family man isn't necessarily proof that he isn't morally capable of holding people in coerced servitude. After all, even George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were slave owners, establishing that ".... one may smile, and smile, and be a villain." [Hamlet, Act I, Scene 5]

Is this a case of proven innocence, or unproven guilt? I don't know enough to have an opinion, so I've tried to be objective in my post on the outcome of the trial.

There are some that are in a better position to deliver an informed opinion, and yet even they are divided. The restaurant's current and former customers have been giving their verdicts online, courtesy of restaurant review sites. (The Globe restaurant has remained open throughout the trial) While researching the story, I found this one-star review by "Dennis", posted back in December 2008 as a comment on the more serious charges against the restaurant's owner:

I believe Singh did this! I always blew off his bad people skills when I ate there before. The food was delicious, after all, so I just braced myself for the bad service...
I feel for the people who had to live under Singh's form of abduction! I feel for the family of the man who died. I remember seeing these people working for him. I remember Jancintra, who was sometimes the only waiter working the restaurant. I tried to tip him directly, as I would see Singh clear the tables.
Now I understand that Singh was trying to keep the tips. Boycott The Globe! I just can't believe the number of people who will still eat there. I guess the idea of human rights escapes some people.

To be fair, there are plenty of positive judgements that balance against Dennis' negative one, including this recent November 2009 review reproduced verbatim at the restaurant's website [typos in the original]:

Currently, Latti Singh awaits sentencing. As media sponges, we are free to believe that he was exploiting a worker that died. We are also free to believe that the worker just became sick adn that the Immigration Naturalization Service, under the Bush Administration, were urged to prosecute anything that looked suspicious. Or, we can ignor the media altogether and forgo the burden of personally judging the guild or innocence of a man. We can carefully choose to bring our business to a family that benefits from our help and support - now as they struggle with the court system, and in the coming months as a patriach could be removed from the family who depends on him.

Our money is powerful. Not only can we withhold it from the things we disapprove of, but we can also use it to support the things we believe in: hard-working people, local business, invigorating the culture of Topeka, and a family that needs the support of its community.

The owner may not be guilty of the serious charges of exploitation, but he was found guilty of employing illegal aliens at his restaurant. What about the breadwinners of local families that need "the support of its community", who weren't hired as waiters because the owner was using illegal immigrant labor instead..? Those unappetizing facts are evidently of little nutritional value as far as that diner was concerned...

A tangential outcome of the case was the discovery of how widespread such hiring practices appear to be in the Kansas City area. In January of this year it was reported that Singh "reportedly told officers that if he ever needed illegal workers, he could call most any Indian restaurant in the area and receive help."

"Singh stated that when he lets one of the other owners know that he needs help, he knows that he will be getting someone who is not authorized to work in the United States," read an investigative report of the interview.
....
During the interview, Singh talked about the three people he is alleged to have harbored. He said one of them was delivered to Topeka by the owner of a Kansas City Indian restaurant, whom Singh had worked with during his time in the Kansas City area.
"Singh stated that it didn't matter if he called Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City or any other city, if he needed workers he could always get workers," the document read.

The Wrong Way To Fight Trafficking

Bravo to Kansas City.com for their series of articles on Slavery in America this week.

Part one of their week-long investigation was bitter reading indeed, as their research team revealed the appalling, "unworkable" bureaucratic mess that has been made of the sincere efforts to curb the evil of human trafficking in America over the past decade. Talk about dis-illusioning: in the face of this serious moral blight, we learn, in painstaking detail, how "[t]he federal government’s vast anti-human trafficking network suffers from turf wars and a lack of coordination":

... In all, seven Cabinet-level departments are involved: Homeland Security and the State Department, the Justice Department, Health and Human Services, Defense and the departments of Education and Labor.
The enforcement effort is so widely dispersed that in 2003 officials set up the Senior Policy Operating Group to coordinate the coordination.
Federal watchdogs found it isn’t working. A Government Accountability Office audit in 2006 noted that disagreements among the various agencies have hurt America’s anti-trafficking activities at home and abroad.
All this is costing millions. Even the Congressional Research Service couldn’t figure out exactly how much has been spent, concluding it was impossible.
A new report, however, found $23 million spent on domestic programs alone in fiscal 2008.
What’s more, federally funded human trafficking task forces are clustered in coastal areas, leaving huge swaths of the country ill-equipped to find victims.
...
While federal anti-trafficking laws provide stiff penalties — and the number of prosecutions is increasing — the chances of being charged or convicted as a trafficker remain low, The Star found.
The United States convicted fewer traffickers per capita in 2006 than most of the countries deemed by the State Department to do the best job of fighting trafficking, according to a study by Alese Wooditch, a human trafficking expert and researcher at George Mason University.
To be sure, prosecutors are reluctant to file charges they don’t think they can make stick.
...
“The definition of human trafficking in the federal code is for severe trafficking where there is physical abuse, or branding, of the victim,” explained Lt. Derek Marsh of the Orange County Human Trafficking Task Force in California. “So when we bring a case without those elements, they are less likely to prosecute.”
...
Across America, many local police and sheriff’s departments tend to ignore human trafficking. Homicide and burglary, assault and larceny remain high on their “to do” lists, but not trafficking.
“I don’t think much is being done to root it out,” said Ron Soodalter, who wrote “The Slave Next Door,” a new book on human trafficking, with Kevin Bales. “There’s the idea that if I stumble across it, hopefully I will know it when I see it.”
More than 70 percent of local and state law enforcement agencies surveyed by Northeastern University recently said that human trafficking was a rare or nonexistent problem in their communities. Only one in five agencies had received some type of human trafficking training.

Nigerian Mother Kept Enslaved By Texas Family?

The slave next door: husband and wife Emmanuel and Ngozi Nnaji have been charged by Federal authorities with keeping a Nigerian woman in domestic servitude against her will for the last nine years.

Their Arlington, Texas neighbors were shocked to learn that within their neighborhood, there lived a slave: a widowed, semi-literate Nigerian woman, with six children left behind in Africa, is alleged to have been held against her will from 1997 until being rescued in February 2006.

It is alleged that the Nigerian woman's passport and visa were taken from her by the couple, who also threatened her into working 15-16 hour days, seven days a week. She had been lured into her inescapable servitude with false promises that the Nnaji's would support her six children back in Nigeria, one of whom had been suffering from sickle cell anemia, and in desperate need of regular doses of medication. This payment was only done infrequently when at all, according to the woman's relatives in her African home town.

A video report on the story can be seen here.

The criminal complaint introduced by an agent of the FBI's Human Trafficking division alleges that the woman "cared for [the Texas family's] baby day and night, cooked, and cleaned. [She] washed all the dishes by hand because she was not allowed to use the dishwasher. The Nnajis did not allow [her] to use the vacuum cleaner and required [her] to clean the carpet with a broom... The Nnajis had two more children. [She] then cared for all three children, cooked, cleaned, laundered the clothes, and performed yard work. [She] slept very little because she was always required to work...

"Emmanuel forced [her] to engage in sexual acts which Emmanuel told [her] she could never report because she would get into trouble..."

"[She] reported her situation, including the sexual abuse, to a niece in Nigeria in a phone conversation during which [she] hid in a closet. Not long after this conversation, [she] was contacted by a Nigerian priest residing in Texas. [She] and the priest planned her escape and in February 2006, [she] met the priest on a street corner with a bad filled with personal belongings."

The CBS news site suggests that the incident took place somewhere in the 1500 block of Green Hill Drive, a seemingly quiet, restful neighborhood that looks like this (courtesy of googlemaps):

Who could imagine that the spectre of slavery could haunt such a place?? If it can happen there, it can happen anywhere.

Hearing The Chains

“I had lamented the sad condition of the slave, ever since I became acquainted with his wrongs and sufferings. But the question, ‘What can I do?’, was the continual response to the impulses of my heart. As I enjoyed no peace of mind, however, I at length concluded that I must act...” ___Benjamin Lundy

It was a shock to discover the awful news that there are more slaves alive today, in our "civilized" time, than ever before. After all, wasn't slavery supposed to be "abolished"?

Slavery seems a universal, and eternal, sin, staining every place in every time. It is disappointing, and profoundly dis-illusioning, to learn how prevalently it stains our modern, "enlightened", age.

Is there anything that can be done to actually abolish slavery? What can one person do, in the face of a world paralyzed by pessimism almost as much as by indifference?

When I read the journal of early American abolitionist Benjamin Lundy, it inspired me to action. To paraphrase his philosophy: I don't know what I can do, all I know is that I must try to do something.

Lundy’s hard early life cost him most of his hearing, but he never forgot the shameful sound of the chains of slavery. And that sound motivated him to devote his life to the noble cause of abolition.

What an amazing man! His life saw hardship piled upon hardship, weakening his frail, under-sized figure; tragedy followed tragedy, culminating with his wife dying in childbirth while he was away on one of many fact-finding trips connected with his dream of universal emancipation. Yet, through it all, he never lost hope. He persevered, inspiring others to carry his singular candle, to follow in his solitary footsteps. To share his dream.

The abolition of slavery must have seemed an impossible goal in Lundy's time; despite all our modern resources, despite the great multitude of modern-day abolitionists, the goal still seems elusive, today. So: what can we do about it?

We can start as Benjamin Lundy started: we can start by hearing the chains of slavery.