conscious

never fails to amaze me, maxi/taxi drivers playing "conscious" music while perpetrating some of the nastiest bad drives on our roads...
lewwe bring a real consciousness:

slavery: the state of one bound in servitude as the property of a slaveowner or household; the practice of owning slaves; a mode of production in which slaves constitute the principal work force.
modern-day slaveholders call this debt bondage, bonded labour, attached labour, forced labour, indentured servitude, anything to avoid calling it what it is.
slavery and human trafficking is an international multibillion-dollar industry with the number of slaves worldwide estimated @10-30million. with slaves being a necessarily hidden demographic, these estimates may be lower than they are in actuality.
the current slave price of us$90 is a historic low, as compared with roughly $40,000 in today’s currency 200 years ago. 200years ago, slaves captured+traded each had a significant market value; it was good economic sense to keep them alive+functioning in spite of regularly horrific treatment. today’s market, especially in the sex trade, pushes a high rate of return in a short time, with the availability of people easy to make disappear aiding high turnover. the laws of supply+demand make modern-day slaves virtually disposable.
is slavery happening in our own backyard?
is china exporting their glut of men, the fallout from 30+ years under a 1child policy? chinese workers in trinbago live+work in substandard conditions, with no governmental concern for workers’ rights or their fundamental right to be treated like human beings.
are local businessmen tricking foreign workers into giving up their passports on arrival and working for barely-minimum wage with no means of return home due to paying off travel+living expenses?
why are so many young girls kidnapped in trinidad+tobago? what happens to the countless victims never found, dead or alive?
can the colombians, venezuelans or other south americans here leave establishments for workplaces not engaged in sexual exploitation?
can child soldiers in war-torn countries leave the servitude they are forced into when it so quickly becomes the only life they know in a world run by adults gone crazy?
the purpose of human trafficking is always exploitation: domestic+agricultural workers in our homes+fields, the sex industry, sweatshops, the black market sale of human organs…
the u.n. reports that 54% of recruiters+victims are strangers while 46% are known to each other, and a majority of suspects involved in the trafficking process are nationals of the country where the trafficking process is occurring.
u.n. trafficking protocol defines “human trafficking” as “the recruitment, transport, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a person by such means as threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, or fraud or deception for the purpose of exploitation…exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs…”
but what can we do?
each 1 of us can help, with students’ and educators’ research, making informed travel choices not supporting sex tourism, using purchasing power to influence companies’ ethical business practices in supply chains, choices regarding child labour, forced labour, and workers’ rights.
nobody should be bound in servitude, treated as property, or denied their freedom.
we can all work to end modern-day slavery now.

walk good.