Trafficking

Modern day slavery is the “new way” (new in a sense that in the past slaves were not deceived or lured, they were taken against their will to work for white masters hence there are black people going by surnames like Williams, Jordan, etc.) in how victims are being deceived into thinking that they are being thrown a life line that they are to be employed, not knowing under what condition. Promises of employment and financial gain are what victims are made to believe they will gain. In a live interview with KaNyamazane Clinic Senior Social Worker Nonhlanhla Ndukula, she outlines what slavery in many forms is.

Social Worker Nonhlanhla Ndukula started by linking modern day slavery to Human Trafficking whereby victims are partially and fully deceived and by means of forcible.

Samukele Manzini:  How does Modern day slavery work?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: First modern slavery means so much but I think Human Trafficking will guide us into understanding how these people (traffickers) go about doing they’re illegal and inhuman job for financial and personal gain. Around the world, millions of people are living in bondage. They labour in fields and factories under brutal employers who threaten them with violence if they try to escape; they work in homes for families that keep them virtually imprisoned. They are forced to work as prostitutes or to beg in the streets, fearful of the consequences if they fail to earn their daily quota. Victims are usually women, men, and children of all ages and they are often held far from home e.g. in foreign countries from they’re natives, with no money, no connections and no way to ask for help…

Samukele Manzini: How do Traffickers operate? 

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: Traffickers tempt their victims by advertising good jobs for high pay in exciting cities or by setting up bogus employment, travel, modeling and matchmaking agencies to lure unsuspecting young men and women into the trafficking networks. In many cases, traffickers trick parents into believing their children will be taught a useful skill or trade once removed from the home. The children, of course, end up enslaved. In the most violent cases, victims are forcefully kidnapped or abducted.

Samukele Manzini:  So what do we call this form of inhumanity?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: This is modern slavery, a crime that spans the globe, providing ruthless employers with an endless supply of people to abuse for financial gain. Human trafficking is a crime with many victims: not only those who are trafficked, but also the families they leave behind, some of whom never see their loved ones again.

Samukele Manzini:  Do all form of trafficking happen the same way?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: No, reason being the local context and specific situation will determine who is at most risk and how they are exploited, so they don’t occur in the same way.

Samukele Manzini:  What are the ways that the traffickers use to lure they’re victims?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: Thought trafficking in persons occurs in a variety of ways, trafficking occurs in three phases: Means, Mobilization and Exploitation. Through means, there is Partially Deceptive were victims may be aware that they are to be employed in a given activity but do not know under what condition. In Fully Deceptive, victims are lured by promises of employment and financial gain and are fully deceived as to the true intentions of the traffickers (Promises of better pay and working conditions in foreign countries are powerful lures). And in Forcible, victims are forcibly taken. In Mobilization: trafficking routes will always reflect one consistent factor; victims will be routed to where the demand exists for their services, where the potential profit of their exploitation is the highest.  Victims are travelled by land, air or sea either legally or illegally. In exploitation traffickers transport their victims for the sole purpose of personal gain, often either to make large amounts of money from their exploitation or to obtain free services or labour. Exploitation includes Sexual exploitation, Forces labour, Domestic servitude, Forced military services and organ removals.  

Samukele Manzini: What do you mean by Trafficking in Persons?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: Trafficking in Persons shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, abduction and fraud, deception of the abuse of power or a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of the payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation and slavery or practices similar to slavery.

Samukele Manzini: How can one define Trafficking especially if and when children are involved?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: A child according to the South African law is any person under the age of 18 years of age but it is also prohibited that any person under the age of 15 years in South Africa should not work but be at school so the recruitment, transportation, transfer, habouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered “trafficking in persons”.  Slavery no matter who is involved, it is violation of human rights and coercion for exploitation.

Samukele Manzini: What are the causes of Trafficking/Slavery?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: Poverty plays a huge role because people are desperate to do anything to survive in this uncertain world: Globilisation of poverty, lack of employment opportunities, social and political conflict, social and cultural practices and feminisation of migration, gender discrimination and lack of information. The Demand for inexpensive labour and for sex services. Restrictive immigration policies also play its part. And in countries suffering from depressed economies and instable governments are more likely to become havens for person-traffickers. In some countries, civil wars and natural disasters tend to disorient and displace people, increasing their vulnerability. Certain cultural or social practices also contribute to trafficking.

Samukele Manzini:  How can one identify a victim of Trafficking?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: In a foreign country it’s simple because obviously the victim may not speak the local language. Other signs include not trusting the police and fearing the traffickers and may have memory loss.

Samukele Manzini: What is the impact of modern day slavery?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: Slavery causes devastating social, psychological, and health consequences for individuals, families, and communities.

Samukele Manzini: As we all know that like HIV/AIDS, (modern day) Slavery is a world problem, what is being done to stop or control this doing of inhumanity or how can it be ended?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: New technologies and the globalization of information is helping people find new ways to organize and communicate to fight traffickers and slaveholders. People within communities around the world are joining together to fight slavery. Awareness is growing among law enforcement officials, government leaders and the broader community. In order to stand a chance of ending slavery forever, we need to better understand the root causes and build deeper cooperation to work against it from the ground up; that means starting in the communities where slaves are recruited or tricked into slavery, as well as in all the places where slaves are taken and used. More investment needs to be made in prevention through providing education, awareness, and economic alternatives to those most vulnerable to becoming victims of slavery. Legal, economic and psychological services for victims are also an important part of the solution and can help those who have been rescued from slavery avoid falling back into the same situation. Similarly, the legal infrastructure can also be enhanced to ensure prosecution and punishment of traffickers and slaveholders.

Samukele Manzini: In the rate that modern slavery is going and surely becoming a serious challenge to countries and for laws in countries, do you have stats on how big or small slavery is in the world?

Nonhlanhla Ndukula: The vast majority of the world’s slaves are in South Asia in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal, followed by Africa in countries like Mauritania and Sudan and South America in Brazil. Modern day slavery exists almost everywhere. In the United States 10,000 people live and work in the U.S. as slaves. Though every experience of slavery is unique, there are several common types of slavery in existence today. Many are familiar with chattel slavery, where slaves are considered the property of an “owner.” There are a number of factors that have contributed to the resurgence of slavery today. Since the 1970s, the world’s population has almost doubled in size.

1.

Modern Day Slavery - Nowadays slavery doesn't only come in the obvious form in which one person owns another person, nowadays modern slavery is also sometimes referred to as human trafficking, a 21st-century problem that includes the trafficking of men, women and children worldwide that are bought, sold, transported and held against their will. The trafficker/s uses threats, intimidation and violence to force victims to engage in sex acts or to work under conditions comparable to slavery for their financial gain. In simple terms it is the condition of being held against one's will for the purpose of economic exploitation and the sale of human beings as commodities and property.

Examples of Modern Day Slavery:

• Forced Labour
• Sexual Exploitation
• Domestic Servitude
• Organ Removals
• Forced Military Services

• Bonded Labour or Debt Bondage

• Serfdom
• Marital and Sexual Slavery
• Chattel slavery      

A 9-year-old girl toils under the hot sun, making bricks from morning to night, seven days a week. She was trafficked with her entire family from Bihar, one of the poorest and most underdeveloped states in India, and sold to the owner of a brick-making factory. With no means of escape, and unable to speak the local language, the family is isolated and lives in terrible conditions.  [Photo by Kay Chernush for the U.S. State Department]

2. UNICEF, the American Anti-Slavery Group (ASI), Anti-Slavery International, moral regeneration

3. Because modern day slavery is a world problem, I think every radio station in the country regardless of its broadcast license regulation, should run this story however I know that not every station would buy the idea of airing my story. Stations that I believe might run my story are Talk Radio Stations like Talk Radio 702 or Cape Talk 567 and SABC’s SAFM reason being, in these radio stations most of their shows have three to four hours shows discussing or debating about issues affecting ordinary and extra-ordinary citizens and guest are also given some airtime. Within those given hours, most shows have an open line (for an hour) were listeners air their views, opinions about issues and situations and general news affecting them directly or indirect from community to international. If a talk radio station can dedicate an hour to open line, I think they can also have an hour and a half for a world problem or situation like Modern Slavery so I believe listeners of talk radio stations will benefit and be well educated from such a story.

Community Radio Stations should also approve airing such a story because members of a community easily relate to a community radio station as it is within they’re reach. Community radio should see my story as an opportunity to inform, educate and alert the community they are broadcasting for. Such stations are close to the people and they know they’re audience, as they are situated within that particular community. Broadcasting for a specific community everyday makes community members feel part of the station so that on its own is an advantage for my story because it’s a guarantee that community members will be tuning in to that radio station (for example, if I want to alert the community of Soshanguve about Modern Slavery, I will approach Sosh FM, I will be able to alert the better part of Soshanguve because most people listen to what they feel is theirs and what is close to them). Community radio reach out to the community with the style and lingo they use plus hearing a familiar voice of a person that one leaves with in the same community (community members will give attention and listen attentively) will help the intention of my story: to alert and educate people about modern slavery. As much as modern slavery is a world problem, the fact that traffickers lure they’re victims from within communities, it is a clear sign that to alert and educate a nation, you need to start at the bottom and the bottom is the community so it is logic to use a community radio station. Community stations like Y-FM, Jozi FM, etc. have the power to empower community members about modern slavery.

4.

• Discovering background information

• Tracking down and securing the relevant individual to interview
• Understanding the information and breaking it down
• Coming up with the “right” questions to ask
• Differentiating smuggling and human trafficking
• My interviewee kept on postponing our interview
• My emotions nearly ruined my story
• Travelling expenses