BS: Slavery still active-

Subject: BS: Slavary still active-
From: beardedbruce
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:01 PM

Human rights groups in Argentina estimate that 800 women have gone missing at the hands of human traffickers since 2007. Worldwide, about 800,000 people are trafficked across borders annually, according to the U.S. State Department.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/americas/09/17/stolen.lives/index.html

Subject: RE: BS: Slavary still active-
From: Wesley S
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:15 PM

National Geographic had a good article about the modern slave trade a year or two ago. It makes you sick to look at a rug and think it might have been made by a 10 year old that was chained to the table.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavary still active-
From: Peace
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:17 PM

Yeah. And our countries trade with the bastards who purvey this stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavary still active-
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 04:25 PM

Modern slavery exists and is a problem in all countries. We don't just trade with them, we are them.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Peace
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 05:04 PM

True to that, Carol.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: gnu
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 05:15 PM

Sickening... truly sickening.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 07:06 PM

What Carol said...

Slavery has just been redefined...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: bobad
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 07:19 PM

"It makes you sick to look at a rug and think it might have been made by a 10 year old that was chained to the table."

You can have some assurance if you look for this label Care & Fair on a rug you are looking to purchase.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Sandy Mc Lean
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 08:23 PM

Slavery will often hide in one form or another. In China it is often the duty of a young girl to enslave herself in sweat-box factories in order to send a bit of money home. She may work long hours and suffer much abuse, while the product that she makes will sell in the western world under a "brand name" at many times its worth because some over the hill sports star attaches his endorsement for a million bucks.
In parts of the Arab world such as Saudi Arabia women are born, live, and die in cultural slavery, always the property of the father or the husband.
In Canada young women and often underage girls are sold daily on the street by pimps that have made them slaves by addicting them and beating them. If the pimp is arrested he faces a minor charge and is back on the street doing the same the next day. The girl will welcome him back because by then she is desperate for her next fix.
Around and around it goes but you don't have to look on a cotton plantation to find slavery. In much of the southern USA though, descendants of the plantation slaves still suffer the bondage of poverty and discrimination. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson spoke eloquently about equality and freedom while owning slaves. Has their two faced attitude ever really changed?
As long as greed exists exploitation will follow. Slavery is exploitation at its worst!

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: CarolC
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 09:24 PM

The kind of slavery that is discussed in the opening post, and that I was referring to in my previous post involves actual physical enslavement (bondage or imprisonment) against the will of the person being enslaved. This is not enslavement in a metaphorical sense. It's actual physical enslavement. All of the kinds of metaphorical enslavement are bad. But the kind in which people are literally enslaved, often after being kidnapped, is the worst, in my opinion, along with enslaved child labor.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Rapparee
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:02 PM

Be very careful from whom you buy your diamonds, chocolate, coffee, clothing, cotton, shoes, vegetables, meat, automobile, television, computer, medicines, and anything else.

And don't get me started on sexual slavery!

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: meself
Date: 18 Sep 08 - 11:11 PM

My diamonds?!

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: mg
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:45 AM

The poor girls in Burma and Thailand are sold by their fathers for drug money. Many are riddled with disease by the time they sometimes are freed. mg

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:20 AM

Not to mention the young boys....

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 08:31 AM

Until the time comes when greed doesn't rule humanity slavery of all sorts will continue. Until the time comes when the belief that absolute power over others is good no longer holds sway slavery of all sorts will continue.

Until then, you can fight it with your pocketbook.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: sapper82
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 11:26 AM

Of course slavery is still active. It always has been!
Even after the end of the Atlantic Slave trade, slaves were still being traded in Africa.
Human nature being what it is, you will always get people who's greed for money and power will come before any consideration for other people.

One could say that as long as our police forces have to follow the rule of law the organised criminal will have the advantage.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Rapparee
Date: 19 Sep 08 - 12:25 PM

A short rope and a long drop....

I hate slavers and slavery.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 06:19 PM

It is hard to believe that in 21st century Britain that people are being kept as slaves and forced to work and starved. Well it is fact, and I am glad to say that the four members of a family of travellers who forced these poor homeless people to work like 'slaves' are behind bars.

William Connors, 50, his wife Breda, 46, their son John, 28, and son in law Miles, 22, threatened and coerced down-and-outs and street drinkers into modern day slavery.


The family forced men to work on laying driveways at addresses throughout the UK.
The 'slaves' were made to dig up driveways using only hand tools and then resurface them with tarmac or block paving.


The charges was brought under a new section introduced last year of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 creating the offence of 'holding another person in slavery or servitude or requiring them to perform forced or compulsory labour.'

Victims of the racket had been made to live in 'virtually uninhabitable' caravans without any facilities while working long hours for no more than £20 a day - and in some cases without any payment at all.

They had been 'kept in slavery and servitude' by violence, threats of violence, withholding of their National Insurance and other documents, debt bondage, and being placed in isolated locations away from contact with other people.

They were given minimal amounts of food. Movements were restricted, mobile phones are not allowed and victims are kept in fear of reprisals if they attempt to leave.

Many of the victims were homeless alcoholics, the most vulnerable in society.
Police observed 22 alleged slaves living at Beggar's Roost caravan site.
They were sent to work in Worcestershire and the West Midlands to tarmac and block paving driveways. Police videos showed that the slaves have minimal clothing, they are always dirty and dishevelled.

Again, the true facts of so called travellers are exposed to the world.

Full story here.

http://m.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1370669/4-travellers-held-police-slavery-charges-Gloucestershire.html

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,999
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 06:38 PM

The Travellers have been accorded an ethnic minority status in England. Please be informed that Guest,Bluesman is an avowed racist with regard to Travellers. I would (and do) treat anything he says with great scepticism. FWIW

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 06:53 PM

Hard to imagine anyone could do this to another poor soul.Well this is the UK today, the facts are there to be read.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 07:48 PM

4 travellers - out of how many? Oh - "accused". That'll be innocent until proven guilty then.

Your bigotry is showing, white man.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Bobert
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 08:13 PM

Heck, many immigrant workers are very much enslaved on large farms in the Southeast... They take these folks in, promise them work, then feed them and charge them for food and shelter and at the end of the week the worker "owes his soul to the company store"...

This is happening today!!!

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 30 Aug 11 - 10:46 PM

Also happens in the UK with gang bosses of immigrant farm workers.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: saulgoldie
Date: 31 Aug 11 - 05:41 PM

We don't just enslave humans to support our lifestyles. We also enslave the environment. We take far more from it than we give--animals, plants, the oceans, water.

Saul

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 02:55 AM

24 men believed to be slaves were rescued by police from a site in Bedfordshire yesterday.
Some escapees had informed the police.
The police said that, since 2008, 28 people had previously made the same claim, "when they looked back" !
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-beds-bucks-herts-14878181

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 03:35 AM

Police have arrested five people after the discovery of 24 men being held against their will at a Bedfordshire Pikey site.

Four men and a woman were arrested on Sunday for committing slavery offences at Greenacre caravan site in Leighton Buzzard.

The men, some English and some from eastern Europe, were found in "filthy and cramped" Detectives believe some may have been there for up to 15 years.
They were told they could not leave and if they did they would be beaten up and attacked.


Those arrested on the caravan park are all so called travellers, Pikey's similar to those illegally occupying the Dale Farm green belt site.,


Police found class A drugs, illegal firearms and a large amount of cash at the site,
The raid was launched as part of a long-running investigation by Bedfordshire Police after intelligence a number of men were being held against their will in poor conditions and forced to work for no pay.

The raid on the site, which involved more than 200 police officers and representatives of various agencies including welfare charities, began at 05:3o yesterday.

The 24 men believed to be victims of slavery, were found in sheds and horse boxes, and were taken from the site to a medical centre.


The major crime unit was assisted by dog sections, helicopter and firearms support, and officers from the UK Human Trafficking Centre.

The men appeared to have been "recruited" from soup kitchens and benefits offices and included people with problems such as alcoholism. They were told if you come work for us we'll pay you £80 a day, we'll look after you give you board and lodgings.

But when they get here, their hair is cut off them, they're kept in in some were kept in horseboxes, dog kennels and old caravans, made to work for no money, given very, very small amounts of food.

They were told they could not leave and if they did they would be beaten up and attacked. But in fact some people did leave and told police what was going on and when we looked back since 2008 we were aware of 28 people who had made similar accusations.

This story involving slavery, class A drugs, illegal firearms and violence shows the world the true side of Pikey's living in the UK today.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 03:35 AM

Come on you guys, I'm no racist and I explained to you on another tread how these encampments are easily turned into fortresses, using "special staus legislation". The one near where I live was used for drug supply, money lending and extortion, I have spoken with addicts who had been stabbed and threatened with further violence when they were unable to pay drug debts.

This is not about "bad travellers", its about bad "liberal" legislation......please grow up.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do Travellers Live?
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 03:48 AM

White man, if you were so concerned about the English culture surely you would have learned something about the use of the apostrophe by now.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Richard Bridge
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 03:49 AM

Regrettably, ake, your attitude to those who do not fit with your preconceptions as to merit do reveal you to be a racist.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 04:01 AM

Richard...There are bad people in all sections of society, given the opportunity these people would prey on others, "special status legislation" allows bad people to behave badly.

Please stop calling me a racist. Travellers are not a "race", in Scotland anyway, and most travellers are decent people.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 04:15 AM

Come on then Vanessa Redgrave, your 'wise and gentle' Pikey's are keeping slaves, what do you reckon to that then?

I didn't think anything could surprise me about these scumbags but I admit to being amazed at this. According to the BBC website, police say they have had 28 similar allegations made going back to 2008 and that guns, drugs and cash were found at the site. This is no surprise at all, the police have allowed this to carry on for so long because they are scared to death of the Pikey's and their parasite human rights lawyers.



http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2036153/Bedfordshire-caravan-site-24-male-slaves-rescued-police-dawn-raid.html

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Steamin' Willie
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 04:34 AM

Sometimes you have to feel sorry for those representing their fellow travellers re the eviction presently going on. They say they are ordinary people trying to get on in life and the experiences of people like myself who have been victims of crime and the police saying they know who did it but they are travellers so bad luck.....

Perhaps my slightly jaundiced view of travellers, no different to M'Unlearned Friend's jaundiced view of anybody who makes a decent living out of their business (apart from himself) is sometimes justified.

Sorry, but I cannot be shocked or surprised by the slavery antics of a travellers camp near Leighton Buzzard no more than some sanctimonious idiots feel vindicated when a rich dude is caught with his fingers in the corporate till.

At the risk of giving bluesman unwarranted credence, this story is at least as descriptive of certain travellers as Jim Carroll's insistence they are all in the mould of Ewan McColl's romantic lyrics.

Let them live outside society? Once society can be assured of others' safety and it takes more than mealy mouthed equality waffle to get that far.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do Travellers Live?
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 04:57 AM

Whether these people are Travellers or not - remains to be seen - it is a deliberate and blatent distortion to suggest that "slavery" is in any way connected with Travellers culture.
I assume we are now going to be treated to yet another outpouring of hatred against an ethnic community - sad to see Mudcat being allowed to slither down this shit-hole
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 05:16 AM

It seems strange that this comes to light, and action is taken, now, during the two weeks between the council getting the go-ahead to evict travellers at Dale Farm, and any action being taken.
An attempt to guide the public perception?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 05:20 AM

I am just waiting for the human rights brigade (the odd failed solicitor or lady of the bottle) to say - well this is just their culture and we should leave them alone to get on with how they want to live. Where do we draw the line on law breaking - it would appear that police were too afraid to take any action. Another question how was it that everyone else on this site did not know about this.

These sites are no go areas for police and the outside community. Some of the people kept under those conditions have died over the years, and their bodies quietly disposed of.

Big dilemma!!! - will Vanessa Redgrave support the slaves or the "travellers"?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 05:29 AM

Nigel, I wondered if the police chose to swoop on the anniversary of 9/11 to AVOID news coverage.
Do you think they have been waiting to act all this time until the eviction?
Should they have allowed the suffering to continue until after the eviction?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 05:49 AM

" Jim Carroll's insistence they are all in the mould of Ewan McColl's romantic lyrics."
Where did I ever mention MacColl's perception - my opinion of the Travellers comes entirely from thirty years of close contact with them - where did yours come from? (Don't relly expect a reply for this)
Why do people insist on distorting the opinions of others?
"it would appear that police were too afraid to take any action."
You mean they are to spineless to do their job; bit harsh.
More likely they were not being paid enough so they decided to move in!!!
As "Pikey" (the Traveller equivilent of "nigger") seems to be an inseperable part of Bluesman's limited vocabulary, can we look forward to nigger, kikey, sheen, wog, wop, kraut, Paki.... as part of these discussions?
Let's see how long the guardians of this forum will allow this one to go on in this tone, shall we, or those who think this level of racist abuse is not worthy of comment!
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Mayet
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 07:50 AM

To reiterate what Guest 999 posted at 30 Aug 11 - 06:38 PM

Gypsies and Travellers fall into four main groups – Gypsies, Irish Travellers, New Travellers and the Roma community. Some are ethnic groups, recognised by the Race Relations Act.
Gypsies have been recognised as a specific ethnic minority since 1988 for the purposes of the Race Relations Amendment Act.
Irish Travellers are a distinct and separate group and recognised as such since 2000 for the purposes of the Race Relations Amendment Act.
Who are Travellers?

From a recent article attempting to understand why racism against these ethnic groups is still 'acceptable' while any use of racist language and attacks on black or Jewish people would presumably be immediately deleted from any decent forum -

"Prejudice against gypsies and travellers is more complex to explain. Anti-gypsy racism is very deep rooted.
It is a form of racism, that is a systematic prejudice and discrimination against a distinct group of people.
It is partly that gypsies, Romany and non-Romany, have remained "unassimilated" for centuries, in those countries where they live. That is partly because of the prejudice they have faced.

Though the gypsies were victims of the extermination programme of the Nazis, this reality has never been adequately discussed in western societies. Anti-gypsy racism therefore remains a norm, a "respectable" racism.

Anti-gypsy racism is also partly the political creation of recent years.

In 1994 the Tories repealed the obligation of local councils to provide sites for travellers. It is now estimated that Britain is short of about 3,500 sites for the 300,000-odd strong Romany and travelling population (most of whom live permanently in one place). Travellers have been forced to move across the country and sometimes camp illegally."

The intentional and continual use of derogatory terms for any ethnic group is, without doubt, racist - it is despicable and not what I would expect to remain undeleted on a blues and folk forum.
As for terming someone a 'racist' - if they choose deliberately to use offensive slurs against any ethnic group then - 'if it quacks like a duck….'

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Bluesman
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 08:00 AM

Vanessa Redgrave has been very conspicuous by her media absence today. According to this wizened B actress, "Travellers" are a wise and noble people with a long tradition. She got the last bit right a long tradition of thieving violence and criminality.

Read the Yahoo link below, it is brilliant. The comments here are a true reflection of the attitude of the hard working British taxpayer towards Pikey's.

I am so glad this latest Pikey crime has been exposed my the media. As I said before, as a law abiding taxpayer, I will continue to expose Pikey criminality at any given opportunity.


http://uk.news.yahoo.com/four-arrested-slavery-probe-114424940.html

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 08:10 AM

I posted this to another thread. In case you don't see it there:

Jim, this turd KNOWS you'll respond to his ravings. Look, buddy, he ain't wrapped too tight and in his own way he kinda likes you. Ignore him and he'll go away. No one anywhere else likes him so he comes here to get attention. Deny him that and he'll go away. FWIW

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:16 AM

Jim, I am with you in deploring the use of pejorative names for this or other minorities.
Bluesman, your abusive language makes decent people unwilling to offer their views.

Jim, Bluesman's nastiness aside, this is a serious issue that members will naturally want to discuss.

It is not just this case, but also the Hampshire and Gloucestershire cases since March this year.
I hesitate to use the term "over-representation" but something is going on here.
What do you think?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:50 AM

Wrong, Keith. The thread was dead for three years. It was brought back to the top by guess who? If you guessed Turd, you're right. Because he's a Guest, he cannot start threads by himself, so he finds others with a theme that's close to his agenda and resurrects it. The guy's an asshole. Period. Ignore him and he'll go away.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do Travellers Live?
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 09:58 AM

It would perhaps be nice to see a little sympathy for the victims here, in the main it seems troubled people, alcoholics, down and outs, and some with psychiatric problems, kept in dog kennels and sheds, covered in their own shit and severely undernourished.

I has seen not one post in any of these threads expressing the slightest sympathy.

Are we all too blinded by our agendas?

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:02 AM

I have been ignoring him 999.
It was me who revived the thread today because I wanted to raise the issue of the new case.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: akenaton
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:06 AM

I'm sorry Bruce, but this is big news in the UK....on BBC this morning and in all the papers today.

I agree with Keith here in disliking childish name calling, but this is a valid topic for discussion and opens up the whole "liberal" agenda to scrutiny.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,999
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:08 AM

I stand--well, sit actually--corrected. My apologies if you felt a slight, Keith. It was not intended.

Thanks for the info, Ake.

Subject: RE: BS: Where do Travellers Live?
From: Keith A of Hertford
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:11 AM

Akeneaton, I was moved to place this case on the forum, but on the slavery thread.
I also referred to the suffering of the victims there.
Others seem only concerned about the suspects, ignoring the plight of the victims (As on the "Prejudice" and "Bulger" threads).
The youngest is 17, now reunited with his family.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Eliza
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:48 AM

Disturbing case, can't see why the Police didn't act long ago, having had previous allegations made. I think there's more to this, and perhaps later we'll hear the details. I for one am appalled on behalf of the victims, and can only hope they can be restored to normality and sanity after their long torment. But obviously, travellers don't go round doing this any more than any other group. It's extremely rare I should imagine. Hope Mudcat doesn't get all the nastiness and racism that appeared on several threads over the last week or two!

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 10:53 AM

Differing comments, from some of the freed.

Subject: RE: BS: Slavery still active-
From: sapper82
Date: 12 Sep 11 - 12:47 PM

I can not for the life of me understand why "travellers" have protection from so-called Racial Abuse simply because they have a different lifestyle to other people.

To me it seems that a large number of them, ok, yes a minority perhaps, but a VERY noticable one, seem to go out of their way to justify the prejudices people feel against them.

As a Railwayman I am well aware of the havoc and disruption caused by scrap metal thieves and am also aware that the majority of cases where prosecutions have taken place have involved these so-called "Travellers."

Trying to silence people from telling unpleasant or inconvenient truths with accusations of Racism is an old tactic that is loosing it's effect.