Category Archives: Slavery

July 15, 2017

Kim Jong Un is shipping tens of thousands of North Koreans to Russia to work in ‘slave-like conditions’ and stealing their pay to fund his regime, human rights group claims

Posted on July 15, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Kim Jong Un is shipping tens of thousands of North Koreans to Russia to work in ‘slave-like conditions’ and stealing their pay to fund his regime, human rights group claims

North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un exports tens of thousands of his subjects to Russia. According to a human rights group, they are put to work in slave-like conditions and have most of their wages garnished to fund the Pyongyang government. North Koreans are sent to Russia where they generate $120million ever year for the North Korean government. Despite the harsh conditions, many North Koreans bribe officials to be sent to Russia due to the even worse situation at home.

North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un exports tens of thousands of his subjects to Russia where they are put to work in slave-like conditions and have their wages garnished to fund his government, according to a Korean human rights group.

The Seoul-based Data Base Center for North Korean Human Rights issued a report which estimates that approximately 50,000 laborers are employed in Russia, according to Fox News.

The workers are victims of cruelty and violence at the hands of corrupt officials who eventually seize up to 90 percent of the pay that they earn.

The North Koreans who are put to work in Russia are paid approximately 50,000 rubles a month, which is equivalent to $841.

At least half of that sum is confiscated by a minder from the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea and a construction crew boss will take another 20 percent, according to the report.

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Posted in Asia, Slavery

June 6, 2017

Venezuela crisis forces women to sell sex in Colombia, fuels slavery risk

Posted on June 6, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Venezuela crisis forces women to sell sex in Colombia, fuels slavery risk

“The economic instability, the insecurity in Venezuela, it all becomes unbearable.”

As a humanitarian and political crisis in neighboring Venezuela deepens, a growing number of Venezuelan women are working in bars and brothels across Colombia.

“I didn’t do this in Venezuela. I never ever imagined I’d be doing this in Colombia,” said Maria, who declined to give her real name, to Reuters.

She charges $17 for 15-minutes of sex, and the money earned is spent on buying medicine for her mother who has cancer.

For the past year, she has traveled back and forth from Bogota to Venezuela’s capital Caracas every 90 days, before her tourist visa expires, carrying medicine, food and soap.

“I’m ashamed I have to do this. It’s a secret,” said Maria, 26, who has told her family she is a traveling salesperson.

Venezuelan migrants are often lured by false promises of well-paid work in Colombia’s restaurants and bars or as domestic workers.

But then they find they are forced to work long hours with little or no pay, are not free to leave the bar they work in, and may be trapped by debts owed to the agents who brought them across the border.

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Posted in Economy and Debt, Slavery, South America

May 26, 2017

21 Across U.S. Are Indicted in ‘Modern-Day Sex Slave’ Ring

Posted on May 26, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on 21 Across U.S. Are Indicted in ‘Modern-Day Sex Slave’ Ring

According to the eight-count indictment, the operation was intricate for its organization. Among those indicted were the people owed the bondage debts of the women brought from Bangkok.

The young women, many of them from poor families in Thailand, were promised trips to the United States. They would also receive visas. Life in cities like Chicago would be rosy, they were told, and they would be able to help support their families back home.

But the promises, the federal authorities say, came with an enormous toll: The women were required to work as prostitutes in cities all over this country until they could pay off exorbitant “bondage debts,” set as high as $60,000, to the very people who had promised them better lives.

Law enforcement authorities on Thursday announced federal sex-trafficking conspiracy charges against 21 people, part of what they described as one of the most elaborate and extensive sex-trafficking operations they had seen. The operation had gone on for at least eight years, netted tens of millions of dollars, and involved hundreds of women who were shuttled among American cities, sometimes every few weeks, the officials said.

“The women did not have freedom of movement and, until they paid off their bondage debts, were modern-day sex slaves,” an indictment unsealed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Minnesota said, laying out

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Posted in Human Trafficking, Law & Courts, Sex Crimes, Slavery

May 24, 2017

Modern day slavery in the Coachella Valley (Video)

Posted on May 24, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Modern day slavery in the Coachella Valley (Video)

It is an ugly, almost unfathomable truth. One that only gets worse the closer you look. California ranks No. 1 in the country for the number of reported human trafficking cases, with almost double the amount of the next closest state.

Human trafficking is the modern form of slavery. It is the world’s second largest criminal industry, the fastest growing, and it is happening right in our own backyard.

“I like to tell people when they ask about my story, that my story started way before I was ever trafficked,” said survivor-turned-advocate Amy Andrews-Gray.

The Desert Hot Springs native grew up in the foster care system and told KESQ News Channel 3’s and CBS Local 2’s Katie Widner that physical, sexual and emotional abuse at home set the stage for what was to come. Making her easily susceptible to manipulation and, therefore, the perfect victim.

“Back in 1988 during spring break, I was picked up by some people from Los Angeles. They took me out there and forced me into prostitution,” she said. “A lot of times people think that you know, the guy comes up and gets out with a knife and chains a girl up or puts her in duct tape and puts her in the car. But, often times, that’s not how it happens. There’s a lot of manipulation and the term ‘coercion’ is mentioned in written law.”

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Posted in California Story, Human Trafficking, Slavery

May 14, 2017

Historian reveals facts of MUSLIM slave trade (Video)

Posted on May 14, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on Historian reveals facts of MUSLIM slave trade (Video)

Historian Tidiane Ndiaye busts many myths commonly held about the slave trade and talks about the far larger and more lethal Islamic one.

Original source.

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Posted in Hidden History, History, Islam, Slavery

January 28, 2017

The Fruits of Mexico’s Cheap Labor (Video)

Posted on January 28, 2017 by ifnm| Comments Off on The Fruits of Mexico’s Cheap Labor (Video)

In their 2014 global slavery index, the Walk Free Foundation estimated that more than a quarter of a million people in Mexico could be classified as modern day slaves.

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Posted in Mexico/Central America, Slavery

November 27, 2016

Wage theft is common in garment manufacturing in Southern California

Posted on November 27, 2016 by ifnm| Comments Off on Wage theft is common in garment manufacturing in Southern California

Earlier this month, U.S. Labor Department officials cited three multi-billion dollar retailers, with thousands of stores nationwide, as the worst offenders in setting prices that drive illegal wage theft: Ross, TJ Maxx and Forever 21.

Beating drums and waving hand-lettered signs, 40 garment workers marched in front of a Los Angeles Ross Dress For Less outlet chanting “Ross Stores, you can’t hide! We can see your greedy side!”

Among the protesters on a sunny Saturday before Thanksgiving, Maribelia Quiroz, 46, mother of three, said she stitches blouses for Ross at a downtown contractor, earning $300 a week for up to 60 hours of work, with no overtime.

That’s less than half California’s legal minimum wage. “The bosses fire anyone who asks for more,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Ross said the retailer complies with labor laws. But federal officials say Quiroz’ wages are typical of Southern California’s underground garment industry, a vast web of factories which employs immigrants from Latin America and Asia, many of them undocumented, in Los Angeles and Orange counties and the Inland Empire.

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Posted in Business, California Story, Slavery

November 2, 2016

Most college students think America invented slavery, professor finds

Posted on November 2, 2016 by ifnm| Comments Off on Most college students think America invented slavery, professor finds

“They came to college without the basic rudiments of American history or Western culture and their reading level was pretty low,” Pesta told The Fix.

For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture.

The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.

“Most of my students could not tell me anything meaningful about slavery outside of America,” Pesta told The College Fix. “They are convinced that slavery was an American problem that more or less ended with the Civil War, and they are very fuzzy about the history of slavery prior to the Colonial era. Their entire education about slavery was confined to America.”

Pesta, currently an associate professor of English at the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh, has taught the gamut of Western literature—from the Classics to the modern—at seven different universities, ranging from large research institutions to small liberal arts colleges to branch campuses. He said he has given the quizzes to students at Purdue University, University of Tennessee Martin, Ursinus College, Oklahoma State University, and University of Wisconsin Oshkosh.

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Posted in Education, Slavery

September 14, 2016

Modern Slavery in Africa (Video)

Posted on September 14, 2016 by ifnm| Comments Off on Modern Slavery in Africa (Video)

This should be required viewing for all American children so that they would realize how lucky they are. Education is a privilege, not a chore.

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Posted in Slavery

June 1, 2016

Almost 46 million people trapped in slavery with North Korea, India key offenders: global index

Posted on June 1, 2016 by ifnm| Comments Off on Almost 46 million people trapped in slavery with North Korea, India key offenders: global index

Incidences of slavery were found in all 167 countries in the index, with India home to the largest total number with an estimated 18.4 million slaves among its 1.3 billion population.

Almost 46 million people are living as slaves globally with the greatest number in India but the highest prevalence in North Korea, according to the third Global Slavery Index launched on Tuesday with Australian actor Russell Crowe.

The index, by Australia-based human rights group Walk Free Foundation, increased its estimate of people born into servitude, trafficked for sex work, or trapped in debt bondage or forced labor to 45.8 million from 35.8 million in 2014.

Andrew Forrest, founder of Walk Free, said the rise of nearly 30 percent was due to better data collection, although he feared the situation was getting worse with global displacement and migration increasing vulnerability to all forms of slavery.

Forrest, an Australian mining billionaire and philanthropist, urged businesses to check their supply chains for worker exploitation, saying he found thousands of people trapped in slavery making goods for his company Fortescue Metals Group.

“But I’ve had some of some biggest entrepreneurs in the world look me in the eye and say I will not look for slavery in case I find it,” he said at the launch of the index in London.

Crowe, who played Roman general-turned-slave Maximus in the 2000 movie “Gladiator”, described the plight of people “in our communities who are stuck, utterly helpless and trapped in a cycle of despair and degradation with no choice and no hope.”

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Posted in Slavery