When you open the linked article the map is interactive and can be enlarged for easier viewing.
Before continuing, let's stipulate that slavery in any form is horrible. Slavery is immoral, it is illegal, and it is an outrage that all people should stand against. It should and must be abolished.
The linked article draws heavily from information provided by an organization called the Walk Free Foundation, a self-described organization dedicated to ending modern slavery. Data from Walk Free's 2014 Global Slavery Index, on which the map above was created was "developed through extensive consultations with an international and independent Expert Advisory Group" according to their website.
But it doesn't name the "Expert Advisory Group", nor does it describe the reasons for their expertise, nor the methods by which the data used in creating the 2014 Global Slavery Index were gathered, sorted, and verified.
We think of slavery as a practice of the past, an image from Roman colonies or 18th-century American plantations, but the practice of enslaving human beings as property still exists. There are 29.8 million people living as slaves right now, according to a comprehensive new report issued by the Australia-based Walk Free Foundation.
This is not some softened, by-modern-standards definition of slavery. These 30 million people are living as forced laborers, forced prostitutes, child soldiers, child brides in forced marriages and, in all ways that matter, as pieces of property, chattel in the servitude of absolute ownership.I have questions.
Look at the interactive map. It seems to make sense, right? But where is North Korea? The North Korean government has enslaved its entire population, so shouldn't it be shown on the map in the darkest of colors? If North Korea isn't even shown, how can we have certainty that the rest of the data are correct, especially if the data source is unnamed? This is troublesome.
Why is there no breakout of numbers by type of slavery? Slavery of all types is lumped together. For example, that means that someone who has chosen to work as a prostitute is lumped together with someone who has been sold into prostitution, and with others who have been forced into military conscription, enslaved in diamond mines, agriculture, etc. The lack of specific data is cause to cast a leery eye on the story.
Slavery is bad, horrible. What the Washington Post has done is to create an article based entirely on information sourced from the Walk Free Foundation. And that information, while compelling, lacks detail that supports its conclusions. In doing that, the Washington Post published a compelling article, but also an article that appears to lack a factual basis.
And that is irresponsible, given the horror of slavery.
32 comments:
As part of owning a business, one attends various trade shows/seminars. Always, at one of these con-fabs, will be some presentation on how to get your message out to the press. One of the topics covered will be "How to write a press release", and you will be told that the press, always on tight schedules, just love press releases that they can work into a story, because 90% of their work is done for them.
Once you have been taught how to write a press release, you start to recognize "press release" stories in the media. Needless to say, they are everywhere.
The story you posted is a prime example of press release journalism.
Looks like a whitewash of the sons of Mohammed to me. Morocco to Pakistan slavery is just a matter of fact part of life. And the worst of the lot are the horrible Saudis, our ruling class' best buddies. You can't tell me that India has a higher percentage of slaves than the Arab lands. Unless this study considers all untouchables to be slaves, which they're not. Nope, an honest study would show a swath of black-red from Morocco to Pakistan, all mullah taught to follow the prophet's sterling example.
@ricpic:
India bothered me. Because there was no underlying data, all I could do was assume that the dark color was because of the caste system, and the belief that those born into the lowest castes are born into slavery. Well, maybe. But some data would be important.
And I agree with the light treatment of slavery in the middle east. Doesn't seem right.
Looks like wishful data, confabulated to sell a narrative.
Not unlike the map of the 100 Acre Wood in Winnie the Pooh.
OK, then why aren't the Lefties all worked up about this?
Especially since the Messiah's about to import about 30 mil here.
The constant twitter references to the US history of slavery, sort of belies these figures of present slavery.
I mean, why would people revisit that past so vividly and so often, in books and film, if indeed we were still living it?
60,000 is a football stadium load of people. It's large. How did Obama miss it?
I just sent out a good tweet... not to toot my own horn...
#Obama has not formally ended #slavery?: "Map shows where the world's 30 M slaves live. There are 60,000 in the U.S." http://wapo.st/16dNYcw
Thanks MH
Methodology. pdf file.
Does it do their cause any good at all to take garbage data and puff it up to sensationalize the problem? Not with me, but apparently with the author of the WP article. And I guess it brings in money, and that's what truly matters.
If you take the time to look at where they got their data you'll see, I think, that a good many statements in that article are simply lies.
And, chickelit, you, being of a scientific mind, should think twice about looking at their methods. It could break something in your head.
Just a caution, but it's really a terrible piece of work.
I did not know that you are a self tooter, Lem
@Rabel:
Thanks for the methodology link.
The methodology looks suspect to my untrained eyes. Words like "estimated" and "extrapolated" early in the document raised eyebrows. And the survey questions - how does one interview those held in slavery?
It has a quasi-UN feel about it.
edutcher said...
OK, then why aren't the Lefties all worked up about this?
No shakedown opportunities?
More liberal lies.
Why do liberals hate science? And who do they think they're talking to? They need to save their bogus figures for the uninitiated. And was this "study" peer reviewed? And were the peers then peer reviewed? I am no longer satisfied until the peer reviewers peer reviewers are all peer reviewed. Can the study be duplicated or is this a one-shot deal?
I didn't bother to look. If it doesn't list Cuba as a nation of straight up slaves to their own government then it's bogus.
The money behind the Walk Free folks comes from Andrew Forrest, an Australian billionaire whose money comes from mining, the Fortescue Metals Group. Which seems to be tight with China -- looks like it’s the company's primary market. Which maybe explains why the Washington Post article doesn't even mention China in its article -- it's shown in the map, but not discussed in the text -- and maybe also explains this little dance re China in that methodology PDF:
"The case of China is very interesting. Although China has the largest population in the world, very little data and documented evidence exists about enslavement in this country. As a default assumption, the WFF research team suggests that China can be likened with other East Asian nations, like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan. Although China’s rule of law is perhaps not on par with these nations, as a first step, the WFF team uses the proxy measure for these East Asian nations, that of 0.001865. At the same time, we can draw from data from the three additional countries for which we have hard data in this Cluster: Qatar, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia."
Love that bit about China's rule of law "perhaps" not being on par with South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan.
Forgot to say that I believe China is estimated to have at least 3 million slaves.
Ebola countries are rife with slavery according to this Walk Free group.
Crack, Crack to the white courtesy phone of selective truth. Crack, Mr. Crack to the white courtesy phone of selective truth.
They seem to be underestimating the numbers of U.S. slaves. Tax freedom day begins a few days after April 15th.
Seven magic words
I'm going to reveal to you seven magic words.
These words will give you a new understanding of issues that most people have contemplated at one time or another.
If these words were spoken 200 years ago, we would have entirely different influences in music, movies, and language.
If these words were spoken 200 years ago, we would have a much smaller national deficit.
If these words were spoken 200 years ago, we would have all of our great cities prospering.
If these words were spoken 200 years ago, we would have far less violence and far less need for gun control.
Ready?
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
V
WE SHOULD HAVE PICKED OUR OWN COTTON.
They should have done that, but on the other hand I'm wondering what kind of spirituals Irish cotton pickers would have sung. Our musical heritage owes everything to the enslavement of Africans.
A lot of beauty grew out of those horrors that no one can really defend, and I often wonder how one tabulates a moral and cultural balance sheet.
The Mcs could have done the River Dance, which is pretty cool.
Lol. I knew some Mcs in Mississippi (McCraw's), sharecroppers, who picked a lot of cotton. They all played a little guitar and sang, too. Maybe cotton does that to people.
Sorry, to get pedantic, most slaves were not originally imported into the colonies/States for use in cotton plantations. A little more than 10% of the 1789 black population of the United States were brought in between 1790 and the end of the American slave trade in 1808, and the post-Whitney gin (1793) boom in slave plantation cultivation of cotton. The overwhelming majority of slaves were imported for tobacco, rice, sugarcane, indigo and other purposes. The overwhelming majority of slaves brought to the New World were shipped into Brazil and the Caribbean to feed the voracious and man-killing sugarcane plantations. American slavery was very much an... adjunct and afterthought to the Caribbean trade. The first shipload of slaves brought to Virginia, for instance, was a pirated load of blacks seized from a ship bound for Veracruz. The mainland just happened to be a much healthier environment for the enslaved, who didn't die on quite the same scale as they did in the charnelhouses of the Antilles. Most slaves destined to work in the American "Cotton Kingdom" were excess inventory from the ecological collapse of the Chesapeake tobacco-growing regions.
Anyways, I kind of would like to know if they're counting convict labor in their numbers? The Chinese laogai are infamous, and I'm in general rather uncomfortable with the American practice of penal labor. American penal labor isn't *compelled*, but I understand that it is rather strongly and inequitably... encouraged.
For the record, I think that Mcs would be just as good at tobacco, rice, sugarcane, indigo and other stuff as they would have been picking cotton.
My mother's people were named McGrath. You people owe me reparations.
You're correct, Haz, and I'm sorry. I'll send you a pack of cigarettes.
No, Allen. No cigarettes. A quart of Jameson and a quart of Bushmill's and I'll stamp your debt Paid In Full.
And they had better be unopened quarts. I know how you natives roll.
With those oxygen robbing cigarettes it would only be right if I contributed an I CAN'T BREATHE cotton t-shirt.
Uh oh, I smell National Conversation. And bullshit.
YoungH nailed it in the first comment; this is a precursor to the development of a theme that will be incorporated, borg-like, into the Narrative. Slavery is still in our midst you heartless conservatives! DIDN'T YOU KNOW?
Frankly, other than hearing about the occasional poorly integrated wealthy Muslim family and their "servants," and the occasional abducted female child many years gone by, no I did not. Know. How could I?
Dear Journalists: As with the Bill Cosby story, I would like to know why I was not informed of this alarming story, a slavery epidemic, previously. It seems like it might be something that you might want to let us know about. Complete with objective facts, interviews with slaves, and prosecutions of slavers. And why is it only of interest now?
Additional Query: IF there are 60,000 slaves in the U.S., where are they? Why doesn't the government have a handle on this? Are they all tied up in basements? Toiling on remote rural compounds? Does this number, per chance, correlate with the "missing" illegal immigrant children from earlier this year? Who is keeping the slaves, and why? Are they all chained to computers at Media Matters writing snippy yet stupid comments on conservative blogs? Details, why no details?
Because if there is, in fact, a slavery problem, (and I'd call 60,000 slaves in the U.S. a serious problem), then I'd like some action on that, pronto. Like, shut that shit down NOW. But between this and a million other examples of incompetence (losing airliners, "losing" illegal immigrants, etc etc) I'm starting to doubt my government is capable of governing as it is too busy accreting power. And slaves.
I'm willing to bet from the numbers that we're looking at forced prostitution estimated numbers, with a rounding-error contribution from imported illegal help held against their will. You occasionally see a story in the news about a rich Saudi family found living in the states with a couple Yemeni "servants" kept under lock and key. But mostly? I'm guessing those numbers reflect the sex trade.
Yeah, and I bet that the government's failure to disrupt this slave trade has a cultural or political aspect to it, like the galactic failure of the British government to deal with the Rotherham child sex operation. For years.
#SomeLivesMatter #WhenItsConvenient #OthersNotSoMuch
Mauritania has outlawed slavery three times in the last 15 years. It doesn't take because it is too ingrained in their society. The slaves have nowhere to go and no way to support themselves, so they continue to work for their masters and the masters continue to house and feed them. They can't legally be bought or sold, but their services can be traded for other considerations. The masters are always north african arabs, the slave are always black africans. It has been said that slavery is the only African custom ever adopted by America.
BTW, Saudi Arabia outlawed slavery in 1962, not 1862, 1962. I am confident there are still slaves in Saudi Arabia today. Male GIs escorting female GIs off base during Gulf War I, were frequently offered cash for them by Saudi men.
Also BTW, something similar happened after the late Unpleasantness Between the States. Hundreds of loyal slaves accompanied their masters to Brazil, where they helped found two towns, America and New Texas. They were called 'Los Confederados' there. They are still there and have reunions where they eat fried chicken and biscuits and gravy, and talk Southern English. Brazil freed their slaves in the 1880s with no bloodshed and with compensation for the slave owner's loss of property.
these new captchas are almost impossible to read
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