BUSN9239 INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS IN THE ASIA PACIFIC REGION
SEMESTER 2 2014
GROUP CONTEMPORARY ISSUE REPORT
SLAVERY AT SEA – ETHICAL, CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY AND HUMAN LABOR ISSUES
ABHISEK JOSHI ()
MAJED ALANAZI ()
NORFADZLIANA KHAIRUL FAHMY ()
POONAM KAUR RANJIT SINGH (2099656)
YASHWANTH DEVARAJULU ()
INTRODUCTION
Slave is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them; works very hard without proper remuneration or appreciation, or; is excessively dependent upon or controlled by something or someone (Oxford Dictionary, 2014). Slavery has existed for centuries from 2575 BC where it was legally protected. There are five different types of slaveries: forced, debt, sex, child and domestic slavery (National Underground Railroad Freedom Center). With different types of human protection acts and awareness to defend human welfare, slavery has become illegal in all the countries worldwide. Nevertheless, slavery still exists in this 21st century. Therefore, measures should be taken to increase the awareness of slavery in the modern generation especially ethical and corporate human social responsibilities among all parties involved in these illegitimate activities.
SLAVERY AT SEA One of the most recent concerns is human trafficking which is a serious problem in Thailand. It involves Thai fishermen, labour brokers and multinational companies. The poor migrant workers from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and Burma have become victims of the
Slavery by definition is the act of working extremely hard without appreciation and is mostly practiced by one person controlling and owning the other. How African slaves were treated in United States was against every right of humanity. Their treatment was characterized by brutality, inhumanity and rape for the innocent women. This treatment however varied with the place. For instance slaves in the upper Southern states had better working conditions compared to slaves in the Deep South.
There are more slaves in this world today than at any point in human history, with an estimate of 21 million in bondage across the globe. Every 30 seconds a person becomes a victim of contemporary slavery, which is a multi-billion dollar industry with estimates of up to $35 billion generated annually. This vile crime robs millions of people of their basic freedom and dignity. Victims of modern-day slavery include U.S. citizens and foreign nationals, adults, and children, who are trapped in forced labor, with little or no hope.
Slavery, there are an estimated 20-30 million people enslaved today (dosomething.org). There are different kinds of slavery including but not limited to sex slavery, chattel slavery, child slavery, forced labor, bonded labor, and debt labor. Though the types of slavery can vary, the people have agreed that the definition of slavery is solid and simple; slavery is the act of holding a person in servitude to a dominating influence thereby restricting one’s freedoms and self-ownership. Slavery is one of the most controversial topics internationally. The biggest question that the nation is faced with is whether or not slavery is an evil institution or if the effects of slavery aren’t harmful enough therefore making it a benign institution. Slavery IS, by all means, an evil institution. Before one can jump into the tidbits of what makes slavery an evil institution, one must first discuss how one should define evil and benign in this situation.
How many of us actually know what slavery means? We all know it happened during the 1800's, but no one really knows the definition of the word. For all we know, it could still be happening. Slavery is the owning of a person who is practically property. People who own slaves control them so they earn profit from their work. Back then, slaves were primarily African-American and were shoved on a boat into the New World. Nowadays, the word "slave" can be used for people who are overworked and underpaid. Even though slavery legally ended in 1883, people are still being affected by the same tactics fueled by vulnerability and lack of stability.
Slave by definition is a person who is the legal property of another and is forced to obey them. That about sums up what slavery really is in our mind and is pretty much the definition that we all picture when we think about slaves and slavery. But this is not what slavery truly was within the antebellum time period. Most of the slaves had a whole different outlook on the way they viewed, and acted and while living in their unfortunate circumstances. This is one of the few things that will be discussed further on within this paper. The main concept of this paper will be to discuss slavery in three sections; these sections will be discussing the types of people who were enslaved, and the nature of their bondage in the first section. The
“When a man, desperate for work, finds himself in a factory or on a fishing boat or in a field, working, toiling, for little or no pay, and beaten if he tries to escape -- that is slavery. When a woman is locked in a sweatshop, or trapped in a home as a domestic servant, alone and abused and incapable of leaving -- that’s slavery. When a little boy is kidnapped, turned into a child soldier, forced to kill or be killed -- that’s slavery. When a little girl is sold by her impoverished family [...] runs away from home, or is lured by the false promises of a better life, and then imprisoned in a brothel and tortured if she resists -- that’s slavery. It is barbaric, and it is evil, and it has no place in a civilized world” (Obama).
Slavery is a condition of being or existence where man is no longer in control of his own fate. It is where an individual is progressed towards becoming property of another to be utilized and disposed of. For quite a long-time, millions were utilized and disposed, as one would do to objects of their possession. From time, men oppressed other men for his self-indulgent needs, using instinctive power and coercion. Along these lines war turned into an ideal instrument of getting prisoners that were later made slaves. Slavery in the United States was the permissible establishment of human entrapment, predominantly of Africans and African Americans that existed in the 18th and 19th century.
For as long as the human condition has existed on this planet there has always been a need to exploit a person or people. One of those exploitations comes to us in the form of slavery, a state of physical bondage denying a person their freedom. Slavery has existed on this planet in all regions around the world from ancient Sumer, ancient Egypt, ancient Rome, ancient India, Medieval Islam, the Vikings, to Europe and the Americas in the late 1400s. Humans are not the only species that use slavery. Ants in colonies are known to raid other ant species and force them to work. The country I live in now, the United States of America, has had a long, brutal history of slavery. According to Jacqueline Jones, Peter H. Wood, Thomas Borstelmann, Elaine Tyler May, and Vicki L. Ruiz in Created Equal volume 1 “In 1619, a Dutch warship brought to Virginia more than twenty African men and women acquired as slaves in the Caribbean.” This was the first case of slavery in North America. The Spanish and Portuguese had enslaved Africans a little over a century before in the Caribbean and Latin America to harvest sugar cane, turning it into molasses to be processed into rum in Europe. Only 6% of captured Africans were brought to North America, mostly by the British, but still we share similar struggles to our brothers and sisters in Latin America and the Caribbean, with a common place of origin, Mother Africa. There were 13 colonies first in North America, all slavery was legal but overtime more
Now when the word slavery comes to mind in our current modernized society, majority of people think of it as something that has long gone and past, a long and tragic historical event that has happened decades and decades ago. A time where human beings were exploited and had no freedom of movement and far from the modernized world we currently live in. But unfortunately slavery still exists to this very day and believe it or not, even in a more prominent scale. Although slavery has been prohibited, the practice of slavery still exists albeit in different
Sea Slaves by IAN URBINA talks about the hardships that and forced labor in the fish boating industry in Thailand. Throughout the article Urbina looks through the eyes of Ling Long and his journey through being a Sea Slave, working on fishing boats often being beaten and having his basic human rights taken away such as freedom and food. Ling Long is traded between boats as other captains use him for the same reasons, for forced labor. Urbina also takes a small look into other forced labor such as sex trafficking and discusses how these people get to where they are and how they become forced into it. People are simply looking for work which is easy to find but the hardships fully outweigh the benefits as these people end up working for scraps
When we hear the word slavery our mind paints a picture of colonial America down in the South with big plantation houses harvesting wheat, with workers being unpaid and unfairly treated. At this time in our county we were struggling with the idea of equality for all. America has come a long way from those days but not with out a fight. Abraham Lincoln, the Civil Rights moment and free and public education has been addressed. Today, we face a new conflicts and a different type of slavery. Slavery and sex trafficking is occurring not just abroad but at home as well. In 2004, “800,000 to 9000,000 men women and children are trafficked across international borders every year, including 18,000 to 20,000 in the US. Worldwide slavery is in the
Human trafficking has been going on for a very long time. It is the process of moving people to other portions of the world in order ot use them as slaves. While it is mostly in developing countries, trafficking is literally everywhere, including America. Why is makes it so hard to stop is the exportation of the human as tracking someone who is smuggled around the globe is practically impossible. The way the victims are treated is completely against human rights. They are usually forced to work extremely long hours and are killed if they do not comply. This Human trafficking issue in thailand has been going on for quite some time. Their trafficking mostly affects the surrounding countries as the poor migrants are kidnapped and forced
To many in the West, human trafficking is unreal- something that happens in developing countries, something that doesn’t affect us. To others, it’s a daily hell- a life they never thought they would have, a curse put upon them from which they can’t escape. The truth is that human trafficking is a global issue. It happens in the richest and poorest places in the world. Even in the streets of Washington, D.C., the capital of America, one can find a human trafficking victim. While the whole world is affected by this tragedy, the focus will be on Thailand- where many of the human trafficking victims come to and from.
Each year, somewhere between 700,000 and 4 million women, children, and men are trafficked into modern forms of slavery worldwide. Trafficking is a growing phenomenon internationally, and the problem is fueled by poverty, conflict, inadequate female education and economic opportunity and the low value placed on women and children in many parts of the world. It is considered to be a gross violation of women’s rights and a contemporary form of slavery by the international community.
Forced labor in Asia has generated immense amounts of money for major corporations, directly in relation to limited government relation and low wages. In 2013, Thailand’s seafood industry generated 7.8 billion dollars, and Thai seafood headed for Europe was worth 717 million dollars. An hike in demand in the Thai seafood market has led to an increase in competition for fish, and then leads to faster production. Few people in Thailand were willing to work long hours for very little, so slave and forced labor ensued. Thailand does have laws to prevent slave labors, such as the Thai Anti-Trafficking in persons act of 2008 and Labor Protection Act of 1998 that were intended to stop human trafficking and give fair labor rights. Even with these rules, forced labor practices still occur (DiStasio). With hopes to stop Thai