Modern day slavery

[panamania79 2]

Last week I had the opportunity of attending a discussion where a woman from Haiti told her story of how she was sold into slavery by her own family.Why does slavery still exist in this day and age ? And what steps can we take to stop such an atrocity ? For more information see www.iabolish.org

[GabiandVi 34]

I'll visit that site, but I wanted to say that slavery was just one of the things that exist today that don't make any sense. There are so many, but one that comes to mind is child molestation. When it comes to that and slavery and rape and the kind of ethnic cleansing seen around the world, the question is not why does it exist. There can be no reason that makes any sense.

Edited March 29, 2008 by GabiandVi

[SnowyTater 0]

Um...to be honest, I don't know, I think there are a number of factors

I think up there kind of encompassing all or most of them is that humans aren't inherently all that smart, especially when we're in large groups and have some sort of monomyth or mono-ruler to control us. If you live in a country where women are still very undervalued in comparison to men or even considered subhuman, you can see how this happens: they're not hurting a human, it's just a woman. If you live in a more collectivist society rather than individualist one, you can see how it happens: the family as a whole needed more money to eat; the individual is expendable for the whole. If you live in a superstitious/myth-based/religious society, you can see how it happens: the woman was bringing bad luck to her family/an abstract law very conveniently passed down from God himself justifies us doing what's easiest/"this is how it's always been done."

Man there are tons of reasons but you know, I really don't think it's the 'natural' way that everybody is meant to live in peace and this sort of thing isn't meant to happen. That doesn't mean that I don't think we should strive for peace and comfort and rights and all that for everyone. I'm just saying, I don't think we're born good/religious/holy/ethical. I think all of this is formed by our experiences and more by our circumstances, probably. Haiti is one of the very last places on earth I wanna be, isn't it absolutely terrible there? I mean really horrendous history, completely injustice, tumultuous fighting out of desperation since they've all been there, no resources, no escape. It's basically like...a little island hell. Maybe someone will pop up and yell at me that's from Haiti or has been there and maybe there's some not-bad areas or something but from everything I've ever heard, it's very very bad.

And it's not their fault. They don't HAVE anything. I think if you took away all our stuff we wouldn't last long before we crumbled into martial law and after that some really weird and funky sort of traditions, too. Whoever manages to gain some power and cajole and manipulate the most people gets to make up the freakiest laws that people will abide by, I guess, because everyone wants security and a leader and if you can offer some stability they'll take in whatever you say.

Haiti's also the place that has a terrible fear of zombies, because apparently there's actually some guys that go around poisoning people with something another that makes them seem dead for a few hours or days. Then after the person's been buried, they go dig him up in time for him to wake back up. His family thinks he's dead, and HE thinks he's dead and a zombie now, and the guy that poisoned him works him on the black market (I guess this is slavery).