Child 'slavery' now being imported to U.S.

[Gunny]

Associated Press

In Africa, children of the poor are commodities, often traded like cows or donkeys by adults who value their labor. This story on child maids is the third in an occasional series on the exploitation of African children. Each story stands on its own.

IRVINE, California - Late at night, the neighbors saw a little girl at the kitchen sink of the house next door.

They watched through their window as the child rinsed plates under the open faucet. She wasn't much taller than the counter and the soapy water swallowed her slender arms. To put the dishes away, she climbed on a chair.

But she was not the daughter of the couple next door doing chores. She was their maid. Shyima was 10 when a wealthy Egyptian couple brought her from a poor village in northern Egypt to work in their California home. She awoke before dawn and often worked past midnight to iron their clothes, mop the marble floors and dust the family's crystal. She earned $45 a month working up to 20 hours a day. She had no breaks during the day and no days off.

Child 'slavery' being imported to U.S. - Life- msnbc.com

 

[Agnapostate]

Wage slavery does and will continue to exist in every severely impoverished culture.

 

[Silence]

wow....

 

[RodISHI]

Thank you for sharing the story Gunny.

Enraged, Shyima, then 17, told the court she hadn't seen her family in years.

"Where was their loving when it came to me? Wasn't I a human being too? I felt like I was nothing when I was with them," she sobbed.

A dear friend of mine was a child slave and she had felt the same way about her family selling her into slavery.

 

[editec]

Tragic.

What else can we say?

 

[PoliticalChic]

I read this story last night and I was appalled at how dehumanizing the little girl was treated. She worked almost day and night and slept in a garage. Her own mother had dropped her off to work as a "slave laborer."

According to the article that she would have been treated worse elsewhere. Perhaps she meant prostitution.

Did you see how the woman who used the little girl returned back to her country after her prison sentence and continued her old ways?

 

[RodISHI]

I read this story last night and I was appalled at how dehumanizing the little girl was treated. She worked almost day and night and slept in a garage. Her own mother had dropped her off to work as a "slave laborer."

According to the article that she would have been treated worse elsewhere. Perhaps she meant prostitution.

Did you see how the woman who used the little girl returned back to her country after her prison sentence and continued her old ways?

I noticed that also. The two year prison stint did nothing for the woman's sense of remorse. Plus the fact the taxpayers had to support her in jail for two years. I did not read anything in the article where they had to pay for restitution to the state.

There should be a better way to curb such actions from happening. Fact is though as long as there is poverty in the nations that allow slavery as such the children are going to be the first to suffer.

 

[Agnapostate]

Though again, I wonder to what extent child labor laws prohibit entry into the primary labor market in those countries.

 

[Silence]

children shouldn't be allowed to work agna, that is the point. Not 20 hours a freakin day for $45 a month!

I understand needing to assist your family by doing some work but you can't really believe that a CHILD is capable of the same level of work as an adult, either mentally or physically.

I noted she had what appeared to be a 9 year old slave when she returned to her home country....

The entire story disgusts me.

 

[catzmeow]

Human trafficking is a huge problem here and elsewhere. Human beings are being trafficked into the U.S. to work as slave labor in sweat shops, as prostitutes in hidden suburban brothels, and as maids and other kinds of indentured servants as this young girl did for years.

HumanTrafficking.org | United States of America

Slavery is alive and well in the world in 2008.

 

[Agnapostate]

children shouldn't be allowed to work agna, that is the point. Not 20 hours a freakin day for $45 a month!

I understand needing to assist your family by doing some work but you can't really believe that a CHILD is capable of the same level of work as an adult, either mentally or physically.

I noted she had what appeared to be a 9 year old slave when she returned to her home country....

The entire story disgusts me.

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/52150-banning-child-labor-led-to-child-prostitution.html

I think you need to familiarize yourself with dual labor market theory.

 

[catzmeow]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/52150-banning-child-labor-led-to-child-prostitution.html

I think you need to familiarize yourself with dual labor market theory.

Please don't turn this thread into another discussion of youth rights. This thread is not about youth workers, it is about children who are being sold as slaves. There is a huge difference between these two things.

 

[Agnapostate]

Please don't turn this thread into another discussion of youth rights. This thread is not about youth workers, it is about children who are being sold as slaves. There is a huge difference between these two things.

Was that not what that other thread was about?

More importantly, do you have an interest in ending child slavery?

 

[Silence]

http://www.usmessageboard.com/economy/52150-banning-child-labor-led-to-child-prostitution.html

I think you need to familiarize yourself with dual labor market theory.

so by banning them from working in "real" jobs they are forced into child prostitution? BULLSHIT!

 

[Agnapostate]

so by banning them from working in "real" jobs they are forced into child prostitution? BULLSHIT!

Damn that United Nations. Probably some minor propaganda front anyway.

 

[RodISHI]

Human trafficking is a huge problem here and elsewhere. Human beings are being trafficked into the U.S. to work as slave labor in sweat shops, as prostitutes in hidden suburban brothels, and as maids and other kinds of indentured servants as this young girl did for years.

HumanTrafficking.org | United States of America

Slavery is alive and well in the world in 2008.

The more people aware of the problem the more there will be that can watch for signs of human trafficking in an effort to curb it.

 

[catzmeow]

Was that not what that other thread was about?

No, it was not.

More importantly, do you have an interest in ending child slavery?

Begging the question.

I see your time off didn't make you any sharper.

 

[Agnapostate]

23:49 - GOOD INTENTIONS CREATE CHILD PROSTITUTION:

Some of us have warned that banning child labour might force children into worse circumstances. Via Hårek Hansen I find a report from Norwegian television, where a respected Danish NGO explains that this is what they have just seen in Bangladesh:

"Due to Western pressure, Bangladesh outlawed work in garment factories for children under 14.

- When the children lost their jobs, many of them ended up on the streets, as prostitutes. We know that much, says Rasmus Juhl Pedersen, adviser in Save the Children, Denmark.

Somewhere between 30,000 and 100,000 children lost their jobs when the garment factories introduced the age limit.

To work as a prostitute, maid or further down the line of production is much worse than working in the garment industry, according to Juhl Pedersen.

Western companies are so afraid of being associated with child labour that the children are thrown out of the factories even though no one has prepared any alternatives.

Well-meaning western consumers who boycott products that can be tied to child labour can do more harm than good, according to Save the Children, Denmark.”

I was under the impression that most of us had an interest in protecting children, and for that matter, all people, from dangerous and hazardous working conditions and wage slavery, and prohibitionist policies don't seem to accomplish that purpose especially well. I fail to see how pointing this out is irrelevant to this thread.

 

[xsited1]

For many Egyptians, this is business as usual. This is true in many Muslim countries. It's going to be very difficult if not impossible to make them change their ways anytime soon because it has been part of their culture for hundreds of years.

One Muslim friend of mine commented on the anti-polygamy rule in the United States when he got a job here. He couldn't believe the US discriminated against Muslims.

 

[editec]

Child labor should be illegal in the USA

We should NOT TRADE with nations which allow it, either