Videos of Modern Slavery

In this video, Jessa Crisp, a Colorado-based survivor of child sex trafficking has come forward to reveal that police are many times instrumental in sex trafficking operations. When she was a child, her family was part of a group who sexually abused her. She was later trafficked. To make matters even more hopeless for the woman, she was unable to report the abuse or go to the police because there were numerous police officers who were actually involved in the kidnapping and abuse. Jessa never gave up because she has been strong and determined to live the life of her aspirations. #Child-sex trafficking, #sexual exploitation

This video tells the story of Grace, a Kenyan woman who was one of the many victims of the smuggling network trafficking African women to India. Grace was trafficked under the guise of working in tourism and was instead forced into debt bondage and sexual slavery. Grace was trafficked by a madam, who brought her to India and confiscated her passport. She claimed Grace owed her nearly $4000, forcing her into bonded labour as a prostitute to pay off the debt. The footage collected shows Grace’s work in illegal sex clubs, individual clients’ homes, and the flat Grace shared with the other trafficked women. This issue stretches beyond the individual recruiter. Eddie Aneideh, a key member of the All India Nigerian Students and Community Association (AINSCA), a branch of the Nigerian embassy, was identified as the chairman of the brothel. Also implicated are African travel agencies that create fake ID’s and health reports, African officials, and the recruiters and madams directly involved with the girls. This indicates a widespread problem. #Human trafficking, #debt bondage, #sexual exploitation.

Slavery in Ghana manifests itself today among the most vulnerable group in society, children in poverty. This often involves selling and trafficking children for fishing labour. Children are bought from other traffickers, and fishermen themselves may later also engage in trafficking. Children are forced to paddle, dive, pull up nets and collect fish. In many cases the children drown attempting to collect nets. The children are priced at $250-500, and ironically, many traffickers sell children to afford to send their own children to school. The depravation in Ghana that has damaged the economic prospects for many is directly to blame for child slavery, as it creates a scenario where for many, the only choice is to sell their children or traffic someone else’s children to survive. The government has taken little action, however, to change this scenario or implement laws to stop this. Without change, poverty will continue to enforce child slavery in Ghana, as even children that are rescued will be returned to slavery, as they have no other options. #Human trafficking, #hazardous child labour, #labour exploitation.

In Kuwait, apps such as 4Sell, Haraji, and Instagram are being used to advertise and sell domestic workers. Despite Kuwait’s strict laws, local agents and domestic owners have continued to engage in this practice. Workers are constantly monitored, have their passports withheld, are given little to no time off, and frequently go unpaid before being sold on again. Tech giants such as Facebook, Apple, and Google are reportedly banning activities pertaining to modern slavery, however, migrant workers are continually posted on social media as a commodity. The video tells the story of Fatou, a 16-year old Guinean girl. She doesn’t speak Arabic, and is shown sitting with her owner, unaware that she is being sold. Whilst Kuwaiti law states that only domestic workers over the age of 21 can be hired, most owners hired and enslaved teenage girls. Fatou was returned to her home country 3 months later and described her experience as “hell” just to bring money back to her family in Guinea. #Forced labour, #hazardous child labour, #debt bondage.

Growing demand for mica, a mineral dust in makeup products, has fuelled child labour and exploitation in India. Despite its illegality, child labour is being used as it is cheaper, thus providing a greater profit. In one of the poorest states in India, Jharkand, child labour has become a norm, as most families live under the poverty line. In Pooja’s example, her family cannot afford to feed themselves, and sent her to the mines aged 8 to work. Pooja and her friends are given ice picks, hammers, and baskets, and must undertake strenuous labour in extremely hazardous conditions with limited protection. Once the mica has been extracted, it is sold to exporters and traded mainly to China. Despite the profit mica brings, the estimated 20,000 children working in the mines make ¼ of a dollar daily for their work. Not only is this labour exploitation, but it deprives the children, some as young as 4 years old, of their education and traps families into the cycle of poverty and slavery. #Forced labour, #hazardous child labour.

This documentary shows the prevalence of modern slavery in the Italian agricultural sector. Yvan Sagnet from Cameroon once worked as a low-wage farmhand. Now he is fighting for the rights of seasonal farmworkers, taking criminal recruiters, or gangmasters, to court. Hundreds of thousands of seasonal farm workers from Africa and Eastern Europe work on Italy’s fields, making them vulnerable to modern slavery. Their hard work provides the country with tomatoes, oranges, and olive harvests. But sadly, the workers are exploited and often forced to live under inhumane conditions in ruins or shanty towns called ghettos. Sagnet has been an activist for the rights of the farmworkers and against the gangmasters. Despite death threats, he has set up an organization called NoCap, a label to certify produce farmed under ethically acceptable conditions. Further, he has taken his fight against exploitation and modern slavery to the courts. However, the Italian justice system has responded to this very slowly. It is a long way to win the fight. #forced labour, #inhumane working conditions #human trafficking #exploita