BS: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea

15 Apr 01 - 01:03 PM (#441143)
Subject: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Just heard a slice of this news story. Red Cross awaiting a ship coming into port with 250 children sold as slaves.. saying the captain may dump them at sea rather than docking with them and being arrested. Several ports have refused entry.

WHASSUP????

~Susan

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15 Apr 01 - 01:35 PM (#441161)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Naemanson

Here is one story about it. Slavery is not dead but it hasn't caught the public's attention yet either. Maybe Bush can focus on it as a way to take our attention off what he is doing to our economy and environment.

Click here

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15 Apr 01 - 02:09 PM (#441179)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

No!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"roaming the West African coast for more than two weeks...."

This supports the cocoa trade?

This is what we support when we eat CHOCOLATE????????

And we've been sitting around here debating FLAMERS????

Where are the songs? Where are the letter campaigns?

We been talking about P-fuckingC???

Songs! We need SONGS!!

~S~

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15 Apr 01 - 02:11 PM (#441182)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: GUEST,Gern, no longer worthy of cookie

I couldn't agree more. Dan Rather found 15 minutes of news more important than this story on Friday. Where is the outrage?

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15 Apr 01 - 02:16 PM (#441183)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

I am making an unoffical song challenge thread right now. Someone please help make a clicky to it once it's up.

This thread here for info and opinions, that one for songs.

~Susan

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15 Apr 01 - 03:41 PM (#441219)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Amergin

There is no outrage because it is not economically important to be an outrage. There is no outrage because they are not American children.

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15 Apr 01 - 03:53 PM (#441229)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Last night I dreamed that for some strange reason, I was having to eat human flesh. A lot of it. Bite after bite. Each one necessary but each one a new impossible decision. It was a very big bowl. I can still taste it. When I woke up I thought it was about Easter Communion, for which I overslept, and it may have been.

But now as I recall the taste it seems a lot like chocolate bunnies, and waking to think "He is Risen" and finding this story instead. I don't think I will ever remember Easter the same way again.

I think the lack of outrage has to do with the fact that this story is almost unbearable to feel. To look at this head on is almost more than I can do, myself, and I decided long ago to feel whatever had to be felt. Most people do not have the tools or resources to feel this. I have them and I can hardly stand to even think about it. I go on with my Easter brunch for my sweet hard-working Hardi, knowing this is happening too.

What possible positive future is there for these children, and how many more? If this is the tip we just happened to hear about, how big is the iceberg?

God help us if we cannot even make songs for 250 kids who may be in the drink, when we can make so many and have so much attention for our Elian's.

~Susan

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15 Apr 01 - 04:39 PM (#441260)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Sorcha

I'm right there with you, Susan. I just saw this in the paper this AM. Horrible, horrible. Where are these children from? My paper didn't say, just that they are off the coast of Africa.

Also, think about how awful it must be as a parent to have to make the decision to sell one of your children to keep the others alive........wonder how many of them are females destined for the Sex Trade? oh, shuddddddder the whole thing.

Where is the UN? the Vatican? the World Council of Churches? Sally Struthers and her Save the Children? If the Captains are going to dump them, boats could surround the ship to pluck them out of the water.

Send UN ships to arrest them on the High Seas......something, anything. SOON!!

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15 Apr 01 - 04:51 PM (#441265)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Naemanson

According to the radio last night there is a tradition in the West African countries of sending the oldest child to work in the home of a wealthier person, usually a relative. In recent decades this tradition has been corrupted and the people receiving the children have been selling the children into slavery and prostitution.

Slavery has never been outlawed in Africa. It has been ongoing since the very earliest days. Children have always been among the victims. I cannot even imagine how you will manage to get it outlawed. If you cut off the economic support to those countries you will certainly hurt them but the only way to make money after that will be to sell more civilians off into slavery. The governments are corrupt and the people are desperately poor.

It is yet another example of man's inhumanity to man.

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15 Apr 01 - 05:04 PM (#441272)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: toadfrog

The children are from Benin.

They are being sold in other, neigboring countries. There is no outrage because
(1) There is nothing obvious we can do about it. It is engrained not only in local poverty, but in local custom. The U.N. official I heard discussing this remarked that it makes no obvious sense to arrest the people who buy the children, or the children themselves. Also that there are people engaged in trying to find the children and get them back home. Of course, they are trying to arrest the slavers. Think about it. Governments aren't that powerful, and neither is the U.N.

2. Think about it. They have slaves in Mali. Not only is it against the law in Mali, it has been made against the law four separate times. They have slaves in Sudan. Songs don't help situations like that. It requires actual physical power, and it requires also a change in the customs and beliefs of people in those countries.

3. We in the U.S. cannot even stop smuggling of immigrants here,some of whom are brought and kept under conditions tantamount to slavery. That has been in the news too. That happens right here in California. How are we going to police the coast of Africa?

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15 Apr 01 - 05:19 PM (#441278)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Sorcha

Oh. ok. For an educated person, I sure am ignorant about some things. I remember, in the back of my mind about slavery in Africa, but I had forgotten, I guess. Looks like short of being the Iperialistic Agressor and going to war, we can't stop it, huh?

And, even if we went to war to save the Africans from the Africans, what are we gonna do after(if) we win??? Set up Colonial Governments? Import all of Africa to the US? Somehow, throwing money at it doesn't seem to likely to work either, given what has happened to Relief money and food in Africa.

Thinking about it, seems you are correct, but it can still make me sick, can't it? Poor babies, and Africa has a rampant (perhaps pandemic) AIDS problem, too. Sad, sad things in this old world.

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15 Apr 01 - 05:58 PM (#441298)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: GUEST,[e-mail]

Here is what I would hope would be done: surround the ship with an international armada. Give the captain and crew a chance to surrender. Get the children off. Videotape everything and search the ship thoroughly. Then blow it to kingdom come.

mg

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15 Apr 01 - 05:58 PM (#441299)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: CarolC

Slavery is alive and well and living in a number of parts of the world. It takes many forms, not all of them as obvious or easy to spot as the form being discussed in this thread.

I don't know what the answers are. Maybe there isn't much we can do, those of us who live in the parts of the world where it is less of a problem.

Maybe those of us who are fortunate enough to live in such places can make a difference of some sort if we live simply and consume consciously. Maybe.

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15 Apr 01 - 06:40 PM (#441325)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Troll

This has been going on for years. Back in the mid-'90's, tow reporters from the Baltimore Sun went to Sudan and purchased a young boy from a dealer. This was all captured on film.
They then returned the boy to his family or what was left of it. When they returned with the story they could not get it published, even by their own newspaper. No one wanted to touch it. It was too hot. It eventually was published(I don't recall where) but there was no followup, no outrage from any of the nations leaders from Clinton to Jackson to Farakan to Gingrich.
Nothing.
And nothing will come of this. The world doesn't want to know.
Besides, it's almost time for Opra.

troll

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15 Apr 01 - 06:43 PM (#441327)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: katlaughing

April's Reader's Digest had a reprint of an article about the thousands of young women who are smuggled into this country and moved around from trailer to trailer, as sex slaves, mostly from Asia. They and their parents are fooled into thinking the girls are going to better paying jobs doing maid's work, like they did at home. One 12 year old told about how the men who bought her decided she should be raped, repeatedly, as she was a virgin and they wanted her to learn how to have sex "right."

Most of these girls cannot get away and even if they do, they cannot speak enough English to tell anyone of their plight. One did manage to get away, but they caught up with her as she was trying to find help; her lack of English was what kept her from safety.

This is here, in America. The article said there were connections to Russian, Asian, and American mafias.

As my Native American friends say, "My heart is on the ground."

marygravey, I like your idea!

kat

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15 Apr 01 - 08:04 PM (#441376)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: sophocleese

Another interesting site to check is here.

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15 Apr 01 - 08:23 PM (#441389)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Ferrara

The worst aspect of this, for me, is the government officials who are more interested in sounding as if they care, than they are in saving those children's lives. Just one example: to quote from sophocleese' article:

"Benin's Minister of Information, Mr. Garston Zardzo, has pledged his government's preparedness to receive the children at a reception centre in Cotonou. Zardzo also disclosed government's decision to drastically deal with all parents, relatives and traders involved in this notorious human trafficking."

Well, that's great, but unless that captain is offered amnesty, the kids remain in grave danger. So appearances, and politics, not the children's welfare, are what seems to be important to the officials involved.

This is human nature. But we don't have to like it. Some e-mails, telegrams and letters to the Red Cross might help.(?) Sometimes, an organization can point out that a situation is hurting a country in world opinion, and use that to get action out of a government.

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15 Apr 01 - 08:46 PM (#441408)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Naemanson

Marygarvey, from what I understand it wouldn't take much to blow up that ship. It has been described as a rust bucket looking for a place to sink.

We are all outraged by this. Unfortunately none of us can do anything. My nephew can and will and that is our best hope. He is studying medicin in hopes to join Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) or some similar organization.

So I have donated a nephew to the cause. What else can I do?

(Sorry to inject levity into this serious thread but that's what I do sometimes...)

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15 Apr 01 - 09:02 PM (#441417)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Sorcha

Naemeson, if I had a nephew or niece or child availble to Donate, I surely would if I could. It's not like the "Old Days" where the firstborn went to the land, the second to the Church,the daughters to Alliances, etc, and I think I am glad about that, but I wish there was something constructive I could do about this one.......but I don't think there is. All of Mudcat together can't take in all of the Needy in the world, even if we wish we could....first, but not Least, we would have to get Permission from the Powers That Be........

and it is not in The Powers That Be's interests to better things for anyone, is it? Their only interest is in maintaining Their Power, no matter what Country They belong to......so very sad.

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15 Apr 01 - 09:50 PM (#441428)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Regarding Red Cross-- I used to work for Red Cross and I can tell you that their required neutrality will not allow them to take a position-- they will provide relief only, and CAN do so because of that neutrality.

Letters will have to go somewhere else. Our UN ambassardor is.... who now???

~S~

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15 Apr 01 - 10:03 PM (#441435)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Oughtta see the song in the song challenge thread. Damn.

~S~

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16 Apr 01 - 01:46 AM (#441521)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: GUEST,JHop

I beg to differ with Troll about the Baltimore Sun reporters and their account of the slave rescue. If you go to the library I believe you will find that the Sun did indeed publish it, and that it was widely reprinted.

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16 Apr 01 - 04:10 AM (#441538)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: sledge

The Royal Navy had a proud tradition of anti slaving operations in all quarters of the world, why not see tax money spent in this way today. Some might make a bit of noise saying they have no right to do so but then shiploads of children will hopefully not have to suffer in the way this current group have as a result.

As Ex RN I know that I and my ship mates would have been only too happy to run these vermin down.

Stuart

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16 Apr 01 - 10:32 AM (#441614)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

Slavery? In Africa? Surely not. If that were true, wouldn't the NAACP be doing something about it? (smirk)

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16 Apr 01 - 10:48 AM (#441626)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: katlaughing

That was really low, Kim!

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16 Apr 01 - 10:52 AM (#441631)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

Yes it was low. Am I the only one who wonders why this organization doesn't seem to be doing anything constructive to help the people they say they want to help? They would rather talk about reparations for slavery in the past than talk about doing away with slavery today.

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16 Apr 01 - 11:03 AM (#441641)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Kat, you know the computer challenges I have in looking around online-- please, can you help? You are a master at finding who is doing what and what can be supported. Where do we write? Who is working to end this, and how do people support it?

~Susan

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16 Apr 01 - 11:16 AM (#441648)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: mousethief

Is it just me who realizes the "N" in "NAACP" stands for "National" and not "International"?

Alex

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16 Apr 01 - 11:26 AM (#441657)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

Why should it matter? I would think that this would be an important enough issue that they would be willing to take a stand on it. Just because the organization is "national" doesn't mean their influence has to be confined to the US borders. I am willing to bet that they do have members who reside outside the US as well.

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16 Apr 01 - 11:30 AM (#441661)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

Try here for a relevant site about fighting slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Group

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16 Apr 01 - 11:30 AM (#441662)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: mousethief

One can only do so much. You might complain about some group formed to feel hungry children that they should feed grown-ups as well. Or that some group formed to improve schools could also work on parks, and there's somethign wrong with them if they don't.

The NAACP was chartered to improve conditions for black people in the USA. That they aren't working to improve conditions for black people elsewhere is irrelevant. One can only do so much.

Now if they're not doing a good job in THIS country, then I say let 'em have it.

Alex

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16 Apr 01 - 11:35 AM (#441665)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

I think the NAACP has its hands pretty full everywhere it is active, and should be expected to set set its own agenda based on its perceived mission and resources and local needs. Like any national organization made up of local chapters, there are some general national priorities but the individual units are designed to work within local conditions.

Kim, are you in contact with your nearest unit? If not, I'd like to suggest you check with your nearest chapter, and see if they are doing anything in this effort, or if not, if they are interested in linking with you to do something on this.

~Susan

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16 Apr 01 - 11:41 AM (#441673)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

Alex, that's very true... but I still have to wonder why they don't even so much as acknowledge that these sort of things are going on. It confounds me just a little. But since I'm just an unfrozen caveman, I am often easily confounded. ;-)

One of the news shows did a story about a year ago on European girls who were kidnapped into sex slavery in Europe AND the United States. Maybe it's like marijuana or prostitution - you can arrest people and smack their hands but they'll keep on doing it because they get away with it most of the time.

Wish I had a magic wand. Or a rocket launcher.

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16 Apr 01 - 11:49 AM (#441680)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

According to the link McGrath provided above, the NAACP did pass a resolution supporting the abolition of slavery in Africa - in 1995.

Susan, I do plan to contact them and ask what support they are lending to this resolution six years later.

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16 Apr 01 - 11:50 AM (#441681)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: mousethief

Horrible things happen in this world. The horrific slavery in Sudan hardly gets any national press at all in the USA. I have no idea if the NAACP has spoken up on this; I wouldn't expect them to as they're not an international human rights organization. I would expect Oxfam and Amnesty International to speak up. I know A.I. has; I'm not at all sure about Oxfam.

Cynics among us may think this lack of coverage is because in Sudan it's Moslems enslaving Christians and Pagans, and the press treats Islam with kid gloves. I think rather it just doesn't think Americans will care, and the purpose of the press, after all, is to sell advertising, not save the world.

Meanwhile informed good people try to do what they can.

Alex

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16 Apr 01 - 12:16 PM (#441694)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Naemanson

Anyone want to bring up the distasteful idea of boycotting chocolate?

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16 Apr 01 - 12:20 PM (#441704)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: mousethief

Obviously you did, Naem. Say more.

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16 Apr 01 - 12:26 PM (#441708)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: GUEST,Animaterraatwork

We take so much for granted in our culture. It's so easy to grab a candy bar or throw a spoonful of sugar into the coffeecup; it's so hard to think how so much of what we enjoy is tainted with the sweat of others.
I think this time, for once, I can give up chocolate. Just thinking of those children and I lose my appetite for it.
And that's saying a LOT!

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16 Apr 01 - 12:42 PM (#441724)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

And here's another anti-slavery link.

As for a chocolate boycott - there are people making chocolate that make sure that it's produced by people who are treated decently, and there are people who don't give a toss, so you have to be careful what you buy, and what you don't buy, including from some respectable big names - like anything, the information is there if you look around on the net.

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16 Apr 01 - 01:08 PM (#441750)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

This is a departure but the chocolate thing reminded me... I used to get a catalog of really nice South American-made knitted goods. The sweaters sold for upwards of $400. The catalog said, it takes an experienced knitter several months to make one of these sweaters. So I wondered... they're selling it for $400, maybe they bought it for $200... so the knitter was paid only $200 for three months' work. Not much, at least not by our standards. I never bought anything from them.

By the same token I wonder about these little trinkety things we buy, like inexpensive jewelry, figurines, etc... they are so cheap at retail, how much did the worker get paid? (It takes time to string beads and I kno because I do it.) And if I don't buy some of these things, is someone going to go hungry?

Confounded again ---- KFC

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16 Apr 01 - 01:49 PM (#441794)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

For anything you buy from a poor country, there is probably going to be some way you can buy the same stuff from the same kind of community, but without helping exploit people.

Boycotting can be as selective as you like, and to be effective, it needs to be.

Here is a relevant site.Traidcraft is based in England, but it's got lots of advice about this, and links to people doing the same kind of stuff in other countries.

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16 Apr 01 - 02:45 PM (#441858)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

McGrath, thanks. I long for the day when I can zip in and out of links like that, with a computer that will work and phone lines that will keep me connected. It's odd to think how much I depend on it now, while we are here talking about economies so poor the parents don't even know anyone in the world is concerned about their kids... I bet they don't even know the kids have not make safe landfall and gone off to their "new jobs." So weird, all of it. We can know so much, comparatively... and not actually know a damn thing, it seems.

What I found interesting today was how much other bullshit was more "important" on the news than this story. I know ALL about some upcoming TV shows, and the stories about how their stars got to be stars... or I would if I had not been sitting there exclaiming WHAT'S THIS CRAP!" instead of paying attention to the "news".

I'd like to hope it's just that the news folks are waiting for their field reporters to get back with those long bits of film and those deep research notes to put together some in-depth thing that can help me understand... but I don't think so.

~S~

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16 Apr 01 - 04:09 PM (#441924)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Mrrzy

In answer to Sorcha, this one particular shipload is apparently all boys. Whether any were destined for the sex trade wasn't mentioned...

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16 Apr 01 - 04:45 PM (#441957)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

One thing is that the TV is obsessed with the idea that news has to be pictures - which means it only counts of it happens where there's the technology on hand to get hold of the pictures, and if it's the kind of story that makes for pictures.

Those links I got through google, just typing in "anti-slavery". But for an indication of what a sick world it is at times, when I tried Ask Jeeves, and typed in "anti-slavery", all it came up with was the kind of pathetic junk sites they call "adult". Priorities.

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16 Apr 01 - 04:52 PM (#441962)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

Here is an update from the BBC . I checked this since my local paper had absolutely nothing about this atrocity in today's edition.
Thanks for all the links, McGrath. SERRV is one organization that gets many things (including chocolate!) directly from local community workers who are paid directly.

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16 Apr 01 - 04:54 PM (#441963)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: AllisonA(Animaterra)

That's SERRV

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16 Apr 01 - 04:58 PM (#441966)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: katlaughing

I am getting ready for a short road trip tomorrow, so don't have tiem to look up a bunchof links, but I do know of one place where you can buy beautiful clothing and the proceeds go right back to the woman who craft them, invested in them, their cottage industries, and their communities. Please take a look at Marketplace: Handwork of India.

Sorry, Kim, thanks for coming back and posting more fully about your feelings and the NAACP. I do think if they tried to get too involved in something overseas they would then have detractors yelling at them about the need to take care of their own, first.

kat

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16 Apr 01 - 06:30 PM (#442022)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Have a good trip, Kat. Looks like links are being found.

Thanks to everyone providing links.

~Susan

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16 Apr 01 - 06:42 PM (#442035)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

The other thing with NAACP is, the duty to care about this kind of thing falls on everyone, not just on people whose ancestors were stolen from Africa. The response should be "we need to be doing something about this", rather than "they ought to be doing something about this."

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16 Apr 01 - 06:45 PM (#442038)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Penny S.

We have a set-up here called Fairtrade, that has its logo on goods bought through systems that pay the workers good wages. It includes tea, coffee, bananas (from the Caribbean, the ones that the USA reckons are harming free trade). Some are also organic.

There's another interesting sidelight on this. We had a student at school, her origins from the Caribbean. She told us that the West Africans in Britain looked down on the Afro-Caribbeans, because they had been slaves. I thought at the time that that was rich, coming from people who could have been dealers (but said nothing, because there's a branch of my past that probably had shares in sugar), but if its still going on....

Penny

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16 Apr 01 - 06:50 PM (#442045)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Classism invites subdivisions of every possible commonality. It's the only way any of this awfulness can stay in place.

Any two people, groups, or interests that might discover a common cause against organizationally-entrenched evil must be persuaded instead to fight one another. We don't have to look too far to see it in action every day; but at least here at Mudcat the music keeps pulling us back to a central reality we all say we share.

~S~

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16 Apr 01 - 09:30 PM (#442138)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Big Red

The world community has noticed and is trying to do something about the situation. This is a perfect instance where the UN can be of great humanitarian help. We will never be able to understand how parents can sell children but maybe we (the world community) can stop it. There are a lot of people who do care.

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16 Apr 01 - 10:01 PM (#442152)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: catspaw49

How about if this were a boatload of children on their way to an International adoption agency? Private national and international adoption is, in essence, very much the same......except the children are worth more money. Because the child may be going to a "better" life and environment, does that change the elemental feature of slavery, of children for profit? Is the end result the mitigating circumstance?

Don't answer that. Just bear in mind that poverty is the enemy here........graft, payoffs, corruption in governments..........all stemming from the poverty brought about by...........?????

Spaw

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16 Apr 01 - 10:05 PM (#442159)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Pat, I was wondering how you would see this one. As usual... clearly.

~S~

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16 Apr 01 - 10:09 PM (#442163)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: hesperis

I can understand how a parent could sell a child. If you really put yourself in that poor person's frame of mind, it becomes all-too easy. But then, I've been on welfare, too.

The thing I don't understand is when rich people don't understand why some people don't "just get a job". Hello, not everyone in this world was born to people who can afford to give a damn, whether emotionally or monetarily.

Horrible, but true.

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17 Apr 01 - 10:11 AM (#442466)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Kim C

This morning on Paul Harvey I heard that the report was a false alarm and that there were no unaccompanied children on board the ship. But how can we be sure?

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17 Apr 01 - 10:21 AM (#442475)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Mrrzy

Where someone says "people whose ancestors were stolen from Africa" - I would correct to "people some of whose ancestors were stolen" ... I am daily reminded of my lack of understanding of this, which might be thread creep here: Why do so many "black" Americans deny their (partial) white ancestry? Why are they only seen, why do they only see themselves, as having only African ancestry, even when the contributions of that part are visibly minor? End of creep.

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17 Apr 01 - 11:07 AM (#442506)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Davie K

And to make a more Mudcat-friendly point, you may like to read the account of Scots children sold into slavery (officially, into indentured service) in the 18th century, which I typed up on my webspace recently - it is from Buchan's Songs and Ballads of North East Scotland, 1828 edition, which I found a couple of months back in one of my regular s/h book haunts.

http://www.maxwellplace.demon.co.uk/pandemonium/scotslaves.html

To introduce this, though with no tune, we have Buchan's collected words for The Virginian Maid's Lament - you might think this would be by a black slave, but no such thing - it is the lament of a Scottish, female slave on a Virginia plantation-O.

Anyone with a tune for this, please mail me!

[e-mail]

The African slave trade is simply a remnant of a worldwide custom, regpugnant though it may be to the West. I don't know enough about the terms and conditions, or behaviour of the buyers, to comment. Study a bit of mediaeval European history, and pretty well everything else from Roman and Greek to fairly modern Arabic, and you may conclude that WE are the odd ones out.

http://www.mp3.com/DavidKilpatrick

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17 Apr 01 - 11:19 AM (#442516)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Dave the Gnome

Worries me no end that people will do this to each other. I don't have many answers I'm afraid but it poses a whole bag full of new questions. Would the slave trade still exist if Africa was still 'colonised' by European countries who have now abolished slavery? Have the African countries just substituted one form of oppresion with another? Did the European occupation of vast tracts of Africa start the slave trade, or had it always occured?

If we now interfere with another culture are we risking going back to Imperialism - British, American or that of any other country? What do we risk if we do interfere? - Remember how the USA wanted the Russians out of Afganistan and now are outraged at what the Taliban are doing?

To my mind education is the best way forward. Teach the traders that establishing proper employment agencies is a better way. Teach the slave owners that they will get much better vaue out of free people. Teach the parents that once the money from selling their children is gone they will have neither child or money. But, most importantly, teach the children everything!

It will take time but we will get there eventualy.

Hmmm - rant off - better get back to work myself before I get sold!

Cheers

Dave the Gnome

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17 Apr 01 - 11:41 AM (#442533)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: SINSULL

I saw a nightmare documentary about Irish girls deemed incorrigible and forced to work in convents as virtual slaves. Another was about post war English orphans and supposed orphans who were sent to Australia under similar circumstances and forced to work without pay for their food and board - also slavery by any normal standards. Children are at the mercy of the adults who "own" them. In NYC alone, every week there appears a horror story of children forced to deal drugs or prostitute themselves for their parent's drugs. Others are abused, neglected, even raped by the adults who often are paid by the city to protect them. I don't believe that child enslavement is confined to Africa or even undeveloped nations. Physician, heal thyself.

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18 Apr 01 - 11:55 AM (#443457)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

The following is from the song challenge thread referenced above.

~S~

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Subject: RE: Unofficial Song Challenge! ENSLAVED KIDS
From: Charley Noble
Date: 18-Apr-01 - 11:23 AM

Maybe we should save these songs for the next incident, with better documentation that "slavery" is involved.

No Child Slaves Are Found as Ship Reaches Benin

By REUTERS

COTONOU, Benin, Tuesday, April 17 S A ship at the center of an international hunt for scores of suspected child slaves arrived here early today, but with no more than a few children, accompanied by their mothers, on board.

Benin sparked the search for the Nigerian-registered ship Etireno last week when it alerted the world that it believed that the vessel was carrying 180 children, sold by poor families to work for nothing in oil-rich Gabon.

Benin's social protection minister, Ramatou Baba Moussa, suggested that there might have been a mix-up between the Etireno and another Nigerian ship spotted off Equatorial Guinea, which might be carrying Nigerian minors caught up in the illegal trade. She gave no details of the possible second ship.

She told reporters on board the Etireno that there were 139 passengers on the ship, of whom 7 were children. She added that she was relieved not to discover child slaves.

"There was a situation, and we had to take action," she said. "The affair is over. I don't deny that Benin is part of the traffic in children, and the government will do all it can to beat it."

No move was made to arrest or question any of the ship's crew. There was no sign of the Benin businessman Stanislas Abadtan or at least two other people against whom international arrest warrants were issued in connection with the trade.

Most passengers did not look to be in poor health and there was little for Red Cross workers to do.

The United Nations Children's Fund had set up a receiving center in Cotonou, expecting to care for a much larger number of children after a 1,250-mile journey. The ship left Cotonou on March 30 for Libreville, in Gabon, but was turned back by the authorities there.

Many passengers recounted how the ship was turned away, not because it had child slaves aboard but because it was carrying illegal immigrants seeking relative riches in an impoverished region.

"When we got to Libreville, some people tried to go ashore in small boats, but when they reached the beach they were attacked by robbers," said Mamadou Fall, a Senegalese businessman among the passengers. "When the robbers found they had no money, they called the police.

"Because they had no papers, the police put them all back on board the boat and said it had to leave," Mr. Fall said.

Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company | Privacy Information

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Subject: RE: Unofficial Song Challenge! ENSLAVED KIDS
From: WYSIWYG
Date: 18-Apr-01 - 11:48 AM

Maybe we should save these songs for the next incident...

Obviously it is a relief to know there may have been some confusion over this story. But it sounds to me like there is no need to wait for a "next incident"... It sounds like it is an ongoing incident of greater proportions than many of us knew.

It puts me in mind of "The Water is Wide"... thinking of all that can be happening on our seas that we here in our civilized, snug spots never have to think about.

I hope the songs keep coming in. This story should not go away; it should broaden to be increasingly detailed.

~Susan

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18 Apr 01 - 06:11 PM (#443796)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Chicken Charlie

Two points--

First, a little deep background. Cadbury's has been saying since 1910 or so that everybody else's chocolate is produced by slaves. They used this to browbeat all the WASP's into buying their own Protestant (Quaker, actually)-blest stuff instead of that dirty Spanish Papist slave chocolate from Fernando Po, or wherever the Dons had their chocolate plantations. I gather from the above posts that Cadbury's still thinks it can get mileage out of that. Since Cadbury's tried to screw the independent growers just as badly, I would really like to see some objective [where, in this world?] comparisons of folks in Cadbury's employ vs. those elsewhere. Not that I'm cynical or anything.

Second, and I shouldn't do this because #1 was entirely true, and I'm only asking for trouble: Were those kids really slaves, or were they migrating somewhere in search of States' Rights? I'm already sorry I asked that. :)

Chicken Charlie

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18 Apr 01 - 07:36 PM (#443876)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: McGrath of Harlow

I was looking back up the thread, and saw Davie K's post about slavery, pointing out that slavery of one sort or another has existed in all kinds of societies and places.

Which is true - but it's worth remembering that the form of chattel slavery developed especially in North America and the West Indies was probably the most grotesque and repulsive form of slavery that this planet has ever known, in which the very humanity of the people enslaved was often denied.

Typically it's the "advanced" society that came up with the worst version. (As has happened in other contexts - cf Nazi Germany.)

As for Chicken Charlie's last post - the fact that someone's been saying something since 1910 doesn't mean it is not true.

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18 Apr 01 - 07:40 PM (#443882)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Charley Noble

By posting the above Reuters story, I did not mean to undercut just concern for exploited young children in Africa or whatever "here" you live in. What I was attempting to do is present a published story in a reputable (well, sometimes at least) newspaper that was at variance with many of the other "news stories" that people had been passing around to one another and which are apparently inaccurate. I can hardly wait for the follow-up stories.

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18 Apr 01 - 09:52 PM (#443985)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Charley, I don't think anyone interpreted your post otherwise... and I also do not think there is anything about any of this that is easy to think about, talk about, or hear someone else accurately about.

I was a bit concerned that people would drop their interest, in the feeling that now we don't really "have" to think about this... not that you had "caused" that, but that it could be an unsurprising reaction on the part of many. You know-- "Oh, good, everything is fine, zzzz....." So if I spoke tartly it was to head that off, not to aim it at you.

I welcome anything you can contribute that can bring additional clarity to what we are discussing.

~Susan

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19 Apr 01 - 09:23 AM (#444297)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: Charley Noble

Thanks, Susan. I do have a tendency, probably shared with others here, to post "Hey, look what I've found" as quickly as I can.

Having worked in the Peace Corps in Ethiopia for 3 yars, I'm well aware that this story and related stories from other parts of the world need as much attention as they can get, but we also need to be sceptical of reports we find in the media until there is at least some "independent" verification.

Of course, I do remember a while back that alarming "news story" about the Japanese trawler sunk by a cow that fell from the sky...

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19 Apr 01 - 12:15 PM (#444450)
Subject: RE: Children Sold into Slavery at Sea
From: wysiwyg

Well, Charley, I'd have had to be in one of my sillier moods not to agree, since I started the thread asking for info.

Peace Corps huh. Red Cross three years here. What a view THAT give you of our world, eh?

~S~

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