Fivefold increase in reported slavery in Britain is sign of progress, says government

There has been a fivefold rise in the number of slavery victims in England and Wales since 2012, according to the Salvation Army.

The charity says it has supported 1,805 people from April 2015 to March 2016. That’s compared to 378 referrals between July 2011 and June 2012 – the first year of the government contract to support victims.
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In the past five years, the group has helped nearly 4,500 modern slaves, but Home Office figures estimate there are still between 10,000 and 13,000 slaves in the UK.

Almost half of its referrals had been sexually exploited, 42 percent were victims of labor exploitation working within industries such as agriculture and construction, and 13 percent had been held in domestic servitude, the Salvation Army says.

Sixty-two percent were women, 38 percent were male and six transgender people were supported.

The highest number of referrals were Albanian. Large numbers were from Poland, Nigeria and Vietnam, and there was also a “significant proportion” of British citizens.

The Home Office said the rise in reported cases showed efforts to curb modern slavery were working.

Sarah Newtown, minister for safeguarding, vulnerability and countering extremism, told the BBC: “Slavery has been hidden in plain sight, and our policy is designed to encourage more victims to come forward and ask for help.

“We welcome increases in the number of referrals as a sign that our efforts to shine a light on modern slavery are working.”

One slavery victim told the BBC she came to England from southeast Asia to work as a servant in the home of a wealthy family.

She says she was forced to work 14 hours a day for less than £100 pounds (US$130) a week, and that she even had to work on building sites.

“I felt like a chained dog. It was like I was digging my own grave.

“Even though I’m out now, I still feel like I’m in chains. I still have nightmares that my boss is chasing me.”

The woman, who wants to remain anonymous, is now at a safe house in Manchester and is applying for asylum to stay in the UK.

Anne Read, the director of anti-trafficking and modern slavery at the Salvation Army, says the nature of the crime means it is “always difficult to know the full extent of the problem.”..

https://www.rt.com/uk/356721-slavery-fivefold-increase-britain/

A Brief History of Slavery and the Origins of American Policing

Written by Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D.
The birth and development of the American police can be traced to a multitude of historical, legal and political-economic conditions. The institution of slavery and the control of minorities, however, were two of the more formidable historic features of American society shaping early policing. Slave patrols and Night Watches, which later became modern police departments, were both designed to control the behaviors of minorities. For example, New England settlers appointed Indian Constables to police Native Americans (National Constable Association, 1995), the St. Louis police were founded to protect residents from Native Americans in that frontier city, and many southern police departments began as slave patrols. In 1704, the colony of Carolina developed the nation's first slave patrol. Slave patrols helped to maintain the economic order and to assist the wealthy landowners in recovering and punishing slaves who essentially were considered property.

Policing was not the only social institution enmeshed in slavery. Slavery was fully institutionalized in the American economic and legal order with laws being enacted at both the state and national divisions of government. Virginia, for example, enacted more than 130 slave statutes between 1689 and 1865. Slavery and the abuse of people of color, however, was not merely a southern affair as many have been taught to believe. Connecticut, New York and other colonies enacted laws to criminalize and control slaves. Congress also passed fugitive Slave Laws, laws allowing the detention and return of escaped slaves, in 1793 and 1850. As Turner, Giacopassi and Vandiver (2006:186) remark, “the literature clearly establishes that a legally sanctioned law enforcement system existed in America before the Civil War for the express purpose of controlling the slave population and protecting the interests of slave owners. The similarities between the slave patrols and modern American policing are too salient to dismiss or ignore. Hence, the slave patrol should be considered a forerunner of modern American law enforcement.”

The legacy of slavery and racism did not end after the Civil War. In fact it can be argued that extreme violence against people of color became even worse with the rise of vigilante groups who resisted Reconstruction. Because vigilantes, by definition, have no external restraints, lynch mobs had a justified reputation for hanging minorities first and asking questions later. Because of its tradition of slavery, which rested on the racist rationalization that Blacks were sub-human, America had a long and shameful history of mistreating people of color, long after the end of the Civil War. Perhaps the most infamous American vigilante group, the Ku Klux Klan started in the 1860s, was notorious for assaulting and lynching Black men for transgressions that would not be considered crimes at all, had a White man committed them. Lynching occurred across the entire county not just in the South. Finally, in 1871 Congress passed the Ku Klux Klan Act, which prohibited state actors from violating the Civil Rights of all citizens in part because of law enforcements’ involvement with the infamous group. This legislation, however, did not stem the tide of racial or ethnic abuse that persisted well into the 1960s.

Though having white skin did not prevent discrimination in America, being White undoubtedly made it easier for ethnic minorities to assimilate into the mainstream of America. The additional burden of racism has made that transition much more difficult for those whose skin is black, brown, red, or yellow. In no small part because of the tradition of slavery, Blacks have long been targets of abuse. The use of patrols to capture runaway slaves was one of the precursors of formal police forces, especially in the South. This disastrous legacy persisted as an element of the police role even after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In some cases, police harassment simply meant people of African descent were more likely to be stopped and questioned by the police, while at the other extreme, they have suffered beatings, and even murder, at the hands of White police. Questions still arise today about the disproportionately high numbers of people of African descent killed, beaten, and arrested by police in major urban cities of America.

Victor E. Kappeler, Ph.D.
Associate Dean and Foundation Professor
School of Justice Studies
Eastern Kentucky University

References

National Constables Association (1995). Constable. In W. G. Bailey (Ed.), The Encyclopedia of Police Science (2nd ed., pp. 114–114). New York, NY: Garland Press.

Turner, K. B. , Giacopassi , D. , & Vandiver , M. (2006) . Ignoring the Past: Coverage of Slavery and Slave Patrols in Criminal Justice Texts. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 17: (1), 181–195.

http://plsonline.eku.edu/insidelook/brief-history-slavery-and-origins-american-policing

Meet The Men Risking Their Lives In Burkina Faso's Gold Mines

There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History

The world suffers global recession, enormous inequity, hunger, deforestation, pollution, climate change, nuclear weapons, terrorism, etc. To those who say we’re not really making progress, many might point to the fact that at least we’ve eliminated slavery.

But sadly that is not the truth.

One hundred forty-three years after passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution and 60 years after Article 4 of the U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery and the slave trade worldwide, there are more slaves than at any time in human history -- 27 million.

Today’s slavery focuses on big profits and cheap lives. It is not about owning people like before, but about using them as completely disposable tools for making money.

During the four years that Benjamin Skinner researched modern-day slavery, he posed as a buyer at illegal brothels on several continents, interviewed convicted human traffickers in a Romanian prison and endured giardia, malaria, dengue and a bad motorcycle accident.

But Skinner is most haunted by his experience in a brothel in Bucharest, Romania, where he was offered a young woman with Down syndrome in exchange for a used car...

http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/there-are-more-slaves-today-any-time-human-history

Child camel jockeys in the Middle East - Ansar Burney - YouTube