The Return of Slavery: Sweatshops, Maquiladoras, and Human TraffickingThe Procuress, by by Johannes Vermeer (1656)Vermeer is one of my favorite painters, and I thought he did a really good job with this one, which was a little bit out of character for him... It was a take on an age-old problem, presumably the world’s oldest profession. I think he summed it up quite well, from the malevolent cupidity of the “punter” to the bemused indifference of the madam, with her eyes fixed on the coin, jaded beyond mere insensitivity alone to the grope she’s receiving.
I noticed last week that piracy is back on the high seas and in the news. It’s another sign of the unexpected and unwelcome return of practices that we’ve long considered relegated to the trash heap history, like slavery.
Globalization (and the accompanying breakdown of the sovereignty of nation states) has an ugly underbelly to it. If we examine the effects of the unrestricted free flow of capital wedded to an indifference towards the rights of labor according to international law, along with the emergence of trans-national crime syndicates, the exploitation of workers (primarily of women and children) and the prevalence of human trafficking (primarily of women and children) has exploded.
Several weeks ago, Paula on
Receiving Light put up an interesting and thought-provoking post post called
Bordertown. It was about the hundreds of Mexican women who’ve disappeared from the border city of Juarez. These women, lured from the countryside to work in the
maquiladoras, find themselves victims of rape and murder perpetrated by bored drug-cartel members for apparently nothing more than bloodsport entertainment. These men have too much time and money on their hands, and are accountable to no one. Hence, the blood on their hands.
7 comments:
Wow, great post! Still making my way through some of the videos.
Great post and links. I remember seeing a story about that in the Tablet some time ago, and something on tv about girls coming from South America to sell their kidneys. Awful stuff.
Hi guys, thanks.
Hey, Crystal!
Great to see you out and around again. :-)
Thanks for the link Jeff. Sorry for not responding earlier, I am getting ready to move to Romania and I have a lot of things to do.
Hi Paula,
That's OK... I noticed you were thinking of going home. Are you fed up with Germany? Homesick for Romania? A bit of both, perhaps?
Home-sick and fed-up. Yea, both. And my parents are alone and I am the only child. I miss them very much and can´t bear they would die without me at their side one day. They are still strong but they do not get any younger.
Finally, I am woman of East-Europe and I can´t adapt here. Adapting would mean giving-up who I am and I can´t do that. One year in Hungary, 8 years here: enough. Time to pack and go home.:-)
Paula,
I sometimes wonder if the USA would have been a better fit for you than Western Europe.
In any case, there's nothing wrong with going home. Your parents must miss you very much, and I hope they're glad to hear that you're coming back. :-)
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