Slavery is not extinct
RECENTLY I had a chance to see the city of Philadelphia while visiting our daughter in the United States. The quickest way to know a city is to take a guided tour, which we dutifully did. We came to learn that Philadelphia was the temporary capital of the United States (1790-1800) while the capital (Washington) was being built in the District of Columbia. Two US presidents lived here, namely, George Washington and John Adams. More importantly, it was here that US Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution was “drafted, debated and signed”. The Declaration of Independence was first read out here to the public to the accompaniment of tolling of the famous Liberty Bell which has inscribed on it the words, “Proclaim Liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof”.
Following the guided tour, we walked around the historic area to have a feel of this important city in US history. Part of the former Presidential mansion along with the original foundation has been preserved as a monument. What attracted my attention though was a recent addition….a concrete wall with nine names engraved on it. Eight of the names was of one word only, the ninth having two. These were the African slaves who worked in George Washington's presidential mansion. The stark simplicity of the monument tells the world that a nation that announced in its Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal” continued to practice the inhuman system of slavery until it was brought to a violent end through the American Civil War (1861-65).
What attracted my attention was the news that US State Department in its latest annual report on human trafficking has degraded Thailand and Qatar for their continued mistreatment of migrant workers. US Secretary of State John Kerry declared firmly, “It is not a 'form of slavery', it is 'slavery'”. The latest revelations did not come from any Labour Attache of a third world embassy in Bangkok or Abu Dhabi, but the credit goes to undercover journalists of The Guardian, UK.
My thoughts went out to our Bangladeshi brethren who sweat it out under the desert sun while being treated shabbily and bolster our foreign currency reserves. What have we done for them in return? Often the migrant workers are tied to a single employer, cannot change jobs, paid less than promised or go unpaid for long periods, their passports are seized and they cannot leave the country if they wish to do so. Our embassies ought to ask its officers to leave their air-conditioned rooms sometimes and go and meet our workers to learn of their actual living conditions and complaints and bring it to the notice of our Government for taking appropriate measures.
Slavery is not extinct in this cruel world as yet.
The author is a former IAEA official
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