Monday, July 28, 2014

The Faces of Modern Slavery (The Guardian)


Talibé children begging in the streets of Korogho, Ivory Coast. Talibé children, almost exclusively boys, live and study in Koranic schools across west Africa. In return for their studies, many are forced to beg on the streets. Anti-Slavery International estimates there are more than 50,000 Talibé children forced into begging gangs. Many of the boys have been sent or trafficked from nearby countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso, and live in squalid conditions, poorly nourished and subject to physical and emotional abuse if they fail to meet their ‘quota’ from begging
Photograph: Veronique de Viguerie/Getty Images


Child slavery makes up more than one quarter of all forced labour. According to official ILO figures, there are at least 5.5 million children living as slaves, although anti-slavery groups claim the real number is almost certainly higher. Local NGOs say there are at least 35,000 children in forced labour conditions in Mumbai's leather industry, brick-making kilns and tea shops alone. In this picture, a group of boys is found in an embroidery workshop in Mumbai during a police raid. Although India has the highest estimated slave population in the world, prosecutions for slavery and trafficking offences are rare
Photograph: Sherwin Crasto/Reuters


Modern slavery is intricately linked with globalised labour markets and migration flows across countries and continents. Poverty, lack of opportunity, violence and conflict uproot millions of people every year, forcing them to look for work outside their own community or country. The line between exploitation and slavery is often hard to distinguish, with people finding themselves trapped in forced labour conditions, having their documents taken by 'employers' and working off debts incurred on their journey. Here, illegal immigrants from Guinea Bissau work in a greenhouse in Andalucia, Spain
Photograph: Christopher Pillitz/Alamy


The International Labour Organisation (ILO) conservatively estimates that around 21 million people are trapped in in some form of slavery. Slave labour props up both legal and illegal industry and commerce throughout the world. In Brazil, illegal charcoal camps in the Amazon use slave labour to harvest rainforest wood to power smelters used to make steel for industries such as car manufacturing
Photograph: Mario Tama/Getty Images

Link The Guardian (more Pictures) >>