Slavery

Well it's 200 years since the abolition of slavery. I'm sorry what planet was that then?

I am getting really pissed off with the whole slavery thing. Every day I hear something about it. Yesterday it was some guy saying slavery should be on the school history(!) curriculum, today its on the front cover of my National Trust mag. As if it's history. Let me tell you it isn't history, it is still going on and that's why I'm bothered about it. The attitude and the general feeling in the UK and probably most of the developed world is that slavery is long gone. Oh yes and it wasn't really us anyway, it was other Africans who caught the slaves for us so that's OK then. As if.

In many parts of the world children are still being sold - yes sold - into slavery. Of course it's not called that. No, this is an opportunity for the youngster! But try leaving. Then there is indentured labour, slavery by another name. By the time you've paid for your food, accommodation and medical care you owe the employer. You can never work it off. Maybe your kids will have to take on the debt too.

But all that is nothing to do with us right? Wrong! Often the clothes we wear, the food we eat and tea and coffee we drink are produced by what is little more than slave labour. Multi-nationals don't openly condone these practices, but by refusing to pay decent rates for the goods WE want, they effectively encourage these practices. How else could you make a tee shirt for 2p other than not paying the person who makes it?

Then again, how far do you need to go to find these practices? The Indian subcontinent? S.E. Asia? Africa? Or maybe closer to home. Morecambe Bay perhaps, your local red light area or maybe the kid next door.

No, sadly slavery is alive and well, what we all should do is be aware of it, buy ethically when ever we can and shout long and loud when we come accross it.

Boris.