There Are More Slaves Today Than at Any Time in Human History | AlterNet
Benjamin Skinner as an investigative reporter, rather than an academic, went to where the trades are made, the suffering takes place and the survivors eke out their existences.
How much for a slave? In Romania about 1,500 euros. While that may sound like a very low price for human life, consider that five hours from where I live in New York — a three-hour flight down to Port au Prince, Haiti, and an hour from the airport — I was able to negotiate for a 10-year-old girl for cleaning and cooking, permanent possession and sexual favors. What do you think the asking price was?
They asked for $100, and I talked them down to $50. Now to put that in context: Going back to the time when my abolitionist ancestors were on their soapbox, in 1850, you could buy a healthy grown male for the equivalent of about $40,000.
This is not to diminish the horrors that those workers would face, nor to diminish their dehumanization one bit. It was an abomination then as it is today. But in the mid-19th century, masters viewed their slaves as an investment.
But here’s the thing: When a slave costs $50 on the street in broad daylight in Port au Prince — by the way, this was in a decent neighborhood, everybody knew where these men were and what they did — such people are, to go back to Kevin Bales’s term, eminently disposable in the eyes of their masters.
NB: I have altered the text of the article above to drive a certain point home, please follow the link to see the original transcript.
Please also see the below links for more…
A Crime So Monstrous
Free the Slaves
