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"Trafficked people passing through Libya have previously reported violence, extortion and slave labour. But the new testimony from the International Organization for Migration suggests that the trade in human beings has become so normalised that people are being traded in public...."
One 34-year-old survivor from Senegal said he was taken to a dusty lot in the south Libyan city of Sabha after crossing the desert from Niger in a bus organised by people smugglers. The group had paid to be taken to the coast, where they planned to risk a boat trip to Europe, but their driver suddenly said middlemen had not passed on his fees and put his passengers up for sale.
“The men on the pick-up were brought to a square, or parking lot, where a kind of slave trade was happening. There were locals – he described them as Arabs – buying sub-Saharan migrants,” said Livia Manante, an IOM officer based in Niger who helps people wanting to return home....
Meanwhile, in Europe:
"The number of people reported as potential victims of slavery and human trafficking in the UK has more than doubled in the past three years."
"We are starting to recognise a lot more cases as being human trafficking cases," [said Tamara Barnett, from the Human Trafficking Foundation]. "It used to be very much seen as just the trafficking of women into the sex trade. There was quite a narrow view of what it involved but now there is definitely a broader view of what is human trafficking."...
A man who was trafficked to work in the UK from Poland has spoken to the BBC about his experience working in the West Midlands.... "To begin with it was really good, then they started taking half my money and I felt like I was imprisoned," he said. "I started work at 7.30am and finished at 17:00. I should have earned between £380-£400 a week. The money was being transferred into my bank account, but when I went to withdraw it, a person came with me and I would only get half of it. I realised this was definitely wrong and I escaped."
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They all have the same reason why this is happening to them. I'd like to answer why, but I need to up my game, I guess.
Arabs buying blacks: what's the worry? Surely we wouldn't want to disrupt that lovely age-old culture.
No wonder Obama is hiding out on a yacht in Tahiti.
Over time the problems of the third world will be exported to the first world. It's why I think being purely isolationist is unrealistic.
The migrations into Europe from the south & east have all the dynamics of the African slave trade of the past, except that the old slave trade was "demand" driven & this new one is "supply" driven. Since the "supply" movement involves people more or less voluntarily migrating, it looks at first like the "supply" movement of people would not have the violence that came with the old slave trade (e.g. ginning up tribal warfare for slave raiding).
But as awful as the old slave trade was, it lived & died by the iron economics that a slave had to be delivered alive & relatively healthy to a market in the New World for the slave trader to re-coup his by then considerable outlay. Not so this new slave trade. Since it is the passengers who pay their fare "to market" (i.e. Europe), once the transport boat owners have been paid their fares, they have absolutely no incentive to make sure their "cargoes" live or die. It's not like they're going to get a bad review in Yelp if their entire boatload of passengers goes down.
We really don't know how many people die in the Mediterranean every year. If some other African or Middle Eastern tragedy drives another mass exodus to Europe, I expect that bodies floating ashore will become common occurrences on some Mediterranean coasts.
Amazing isn't it? Our ability to "discuss" things without really discussing them.
As AllenS has noted, our inability to "up our game" means we have to shut up about the root causes of this and so many other issues.
Perhaps we should get Michelle Obama to launch another hashtag campaign. That alone usually satisfies the left that something "real" is "getting done".
All I know is what I've been told by our lefty would-be overlords: the culture that drives this is superior to the west.
Surely we wouldn't want to disrupt that lovely age-old culture.
Slavery was a uniquely American institution, financed by Jews. I learned that in school.
Wait.Just.One.Minute!
I thought everyone is now taught in school that America started slavery and it ended when the North won the war, with the exception of Republicans who still treat the black man like a slave.
This must be some of that "fake news" I keep hearing so much about...
I posted a link to this article in yesterday's "At the Early Lunch Cafe..." post. But of course we're too busy contemplating our next regime change operation to pause for a second and consider the absolute horrors our last regime change operation has unleashed. And we did that regime change operation while our two regime change operations before that we're still producing violent, vexing problems of their own. Remember that definition about insanity?
Hillary's legacy.
Shouldn't they be condemned for appropriating white America's culture?
Notice that these people were sold off into bondage when the smugglers didn't pay off whoever they were supposed to pay off and the slaves had intended to get into Europe. To live off European welfare slaves while working off the books.
Doesn't "human trafficking" generally mean helping someone sneak in somewhere they're not wanted?
"I thought everyone is now taught in school that America started slavery and it ended when the North won the war, with the exception of Republicans who still treat the black man like a slave."
Remember that bizarre opening number at the Rio Olympics which seemed to celebrate slavery? I read that that confused some young people, who didn't realize Brazil - wonderful, Third World, multicultural Brazil - had a history of slavery. Polls have shown many millennials do indeed think slavery was invented by Americans.
“The men on the pick-up were brought to a square, or parking lot, where a kind of slave trade was happening. There were locals – he described them as Arabs – buying sub-Saharan migrants”
Those black lives don't seem to matter, do they?
So does anyone think this possibly happens here when our borders are porous?
@Maybee:
So does anyone think this possibly happens here when our borders are porous?
No. But a tight moratorium on immigration into the US would reduce the magnet of human trafficking into this country. Not the primary reason I want a moratorium, but it is a nice side effect.
Religion of Peace.
Nonapod: Over time the problems of the third world will be exported to the first world. It's why I think being purely isolationist is unrealistic.
I'm never sure what's meant by the word "isolationist". I don't think I've ever met anyone who believed in "isolationism", let alone "pure isolationsim". IME it's generally thrown around by people advocating hubristic interventionist policies that end up doing more harm than good. ("Doing more harm than good" being a euphemism for "absolute fucking disaster".)
There wouldn't be slave markets in Libya if "humanitarian" Westerners hadn't been spending decades devising and implementing policies that end up being giant magnets for migrants into the West. And the "humanitarian" "fix" for the problems caused by the last series of "humanitarian" "fixes" causes the next humanitarian crisis, which of course requires an even more disastrous "fix"....ad infinitum.
The West cannot fix all the world's problems. The idea that the only way for Westerners to defend their own territory and their own cultures is by fixing every problem in the world (while permitting mass migration in the meantime), is the most dangerous and misguided belief of all the dangerous and misguided beliefs beloved by the hubristic bureaucrats in charge in the West.
@nonapod:
Over time the problems of the third world will be exported to the first world. It's why I think being purely isolationist is unrealistic.
How many of the third world's problems have been exported to Japan. Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with among the highest standard of living. And they have a tight border and maintain very strict control on immigration. There's a lesson there for us. Returning to our pre-1965 immigration policy would be a fantastic step in that direction.
@Angel-Dyne:
IME it's generally thrown around by people advocating hubristic interventionist policies that end up doing more harm than good.
I agree completely. The establishment's madness for foreign meddling and military adventurism is so out of control that the bar for being an "isolationist" is basically unwillingness to unleash violence and destruction on foreign countries for pretty much no strategic benefit at all to America or Americans.
"The number of people reported as potential victims of slavery and human trafficking in the UK has more than doubled in the past three years."
"Reported", "potential".
Very convenient, those words.
Wonder what the real numbers are, and if it's anything like the US hysteria over "human trafficking", which pretty much never actually is?
(Probably more than the US, admittedly.)
"Japan is one of the wealthiest countries in the world with among the highest standard of living."
What I wonder about with Japan is their apparent lack of interest in marrying and having children. Birthrates are low throughout the First World countries but in Japan the problem is especially acute:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population/
They now have the world's oldest population. While their determination to preserve their own culture is admirable, who, exactly, are they preserving it for?
@exiledonmainstreet:
Japan and America: Ageing and Workforces
Due to a Lack of Mass Immigration, Japan Is Plagued by a Rising Standard of Living
This new slave trade in Libya would seem to be a natural expression of the vibrant globalization process. Hillary and her boss can take a lot of credit for catalyzing the new market. As noted by Young Hegelian, the dynamics of this market are not demand-driven and so there is not much incentive to keep these people alive if they don't sell quickly. Like hostages they become costly to feed and guard and if they die there will be no shortage of replacements. Where is the UNHCR in all this? Let me guess, back in Geneva, trying to organize an emergency luncheon to raise more money for another conference to study the problem.
J. Farmer, I definitely agree that that allowing mass immigration is no solution to falling birthrates. I have no doubt that the Japanese economy is doing better at this point in time in part because they have not permitted an influx of low-skilled workers into the country. I guess I was thinking of the long term. While the rapidly growing Japanese population in the early part of the 20th century certainly caused problems (they wanted Lebenstraum as much as the Germans did during WWII), an extremely low birthrate will, eventually, bring its' own difficulties. I'm not thinking only of the obvious problem of how to maintain social services for an elderly population, but of the loss of vitality. A society compromised mainly of old folks is unlikely to produce many cutting edge inventions or risk takers.
@exiledonmainstreet:
I certainly get your point, and it's the kind of questions people have been asking about Japan since the so called "lost decade" of the 1990s. I also think it's a very economistic way of looking at the situation. Obviously population cannot continue at an ever increasing rate given finite resources. And usually when there is a lot of handwringing over Japan's demographics, they are inevitably followed by calls for Japan to loosen its borders. Thankfully they've steadfastly refused those calls.
"While their determination to preserve their own culture is admirable, who, exactly, are they preserving it for?"
Themselves? How selfish of them![/sarc]
exiledonmainstreet: What I wonder about with Japan is their apparent lack of interest in marrying and having children. Birthrates are low throughout the First World countries but in Japan the problem is especially acute:
http://worldpopulationreview.com/countries/japan-population/
They now have the world's oldest population. While their determination to preserve their own culture is admirable, who, exactly, are they preserving it for?
A top-heavy age pyramid is a problem that will no doubt cause pain working itself out, but it's not the OMG We're Dooooooomed situation that, say, the editorial boards of the Economist or the WSJ want us to think it is. (And no amount of immigration is going to fix an entitlements Ponzi scheme, no matter how fervently European and American governments believe in its magic.)
Fertility trends are not linear. It's not as if Japan couldn't do with an absolute decrease in population size right now, and I wouldn't bet that the trends prevailing now will be the trends prevailing forever. So what have the Japanese (or any country) got to lose? If they hit a demographic death spiral, somebody else will come along and take their islands. If they maintain too-low fertility even as conditions change, and import beaucoup immigrants to make up the deficit, they'll...well, same result. They, and their unique advanced culture, will die out and somebody else will have taken their islands. So they may as well hang tough and ride out the dysfunctions of late modernity maintaining their border.
(Side note - iirc, the Black Death of the 14th c., one hell of a population cull, disproportionately whacked the young and productive. Somehow Europe stuggled along in the succeeding centuries as the stagnant backwater we read about in the history books now.)
I don't think the Japanese are going to die out and Japanese culture disappear. Europeans (including European-diaspora nations) and their cultures, I'm not so sure about.
mike c said...
"While their determination to preserve their own culture is admirable, who, exactly, are they preserving it for?"
Themselves? How selfish of them![/sarc]
I was thinking of future generations.
Angel-Dyne said...I'm never sure what's meant by the word "isolationist". I don't think I've ever met anyone who believed in "isolationism", let alone "pure isolationsim". IME it's generally thrown around by people advocating hubristic interventionist policies that end up doing more harm than good. ("Doing more harm than good" being a euphemism for "absolute fucking disaster".)
I wasn't attempting to advocate military adventurism or excessive interventionism. I just think that generally assuming that anytime we get involved in another nation's (or an entire region's) affairs, for whatever reason, that the result can only ever be bad or more harmful than good is probably a bit too reductive.
I mean, would the world be better or worse off if America never existed or never got involved in anything beyond its own borders? Would it be safer? Would human beings have more or less individual freedoms? Now I guess I'm being a bit reductive.
And, yeah I agree that a many cases a lot of well meaning humanitarian efforts in sub-Saharan Africa have lead to far bigger disasters, but I'm not convinced that that means that therefore any attempts to do anything could only lead to bad things, wasted money, and human misery. But I also admit that I haven't the faintest clue about what the best solutions might be with regards to lots of these third world hellholes. I find it's often easier to just say there is no workable solution, or at least no workable solution involving wealthy well meaning interventionalists Westerners.
As for Japan... Japan is perhaps the most prominent example of a highly successful country that is highly insular in terms of culture and ethnicity. However, it could be argued that their highly insular nature may lead them to demographic cataclysm with their low birth rates and a stagnate economy.
I hope you are right, Angel-Dyne and J. Farmer. I was certainly not arguing for the Japanese to open their borders. I think they've got that part right.
Ann Coulter has noted that the Australians, whose immigration policies, while not as restrictive as Japan's, are much tighter than ours, have successfully implemented a $15 minimum wage. If you want to confuse a leftist, tell him the obvious - that open borders mean low wages.
I agree that the European cultures are the ones most at risk right now, due to both low birthrates and their suicidal immigration policies.
@Nonapod:
I just think that generally assuming that anytime we get involved in another nation's (or an entire region's) affairs, for whatever reason, that the result can only ever be bad or more harmful than good is probably a bit too reductive.
I agree that would be a very reductive argument, but who is making that argument? All the criticisms I've read (and made) about various interventions make very specific arguments about why such intervention is a bad idea. It is usually in the face of these arguments that "isolationist" slur is pulled out.
However, it could be argued that their highly insular nature may lead them to demographic cataclysm with their low birth rates and a stagnate economy.
How, in your mind, would this "cataclysm" play out? A decreasing Japanese population is inevitable, unless you believe population levels can increase in perpetuity.
@exiledonmainstreet:
If you want to confuse a leftist, tell him the obvious - that open borders mean low wages.
I agree that the European cultures are the ones most at risk right now, due to both low birthrates and their suicidal immigration policies.
Agreed. It's part of what makes the cobbled together coalition of the Democratic Party such a basket case. They simultaneously decry economic inequality while being enthusiastic for ever greater levels of low-skilled immigration, which of course will only exacerbate the problem of inequality and depress wages for native Americans.
CAIR
I would add that a population that is demographically youthful is not necessarily a great thing - just look at the Middle East's angry young men.
One of the biggest tragedies of those societies is that that youthful ardor and vitality is not channeled constructively but goes into violence and terror.
The biggest "cutting edge invention" the Arabs have produced is the suicide bomber.
J. Farmer said... agree that would be a very reductive argument, but who is making that argument?
Maybe you're right, it was a bit of a strawman. I mean I have actually met people who could certainly be called "isolationists", but generally that term seems to be used to unfairly categorize on people who are even slightly skeptical of any interventionalism.
J. Farmer said...How, in your mind, would this "cataclysm" play out? A decreasing Japanese population is inevitable, unless you believe population levels can increase in perpetuity.
I wasn't saying I completely agreed with that thinking either, but I guess it's traditionally regarded as very bad, economically speaking, when you have a negative population growth in a country with all the issues of shrinking production and consumption, caring for an aging population ect. Although I suspect with a very technologically advanced society with more and more robotization and automation, many of these "problems" aren't as significant as they may have been in the past.
Young Hegelian said
But as awful as the old slave trade was, it lived & died by the iron economics that a slave had to be delivered alive & relatively healthy to a market in the New World for the slave trader to re-coup his by then considerable outlay. Not so this new slave trade. Since it is the passengers who pay their fare "to market" (i.e. Europe), once the transport boat owners have been paid their fares, they have absolutely no incentive to make sure their "cargoes" live or die. It's not like they're going to get a bad review in Yelp if their entire boatload of passengers goes down.
It's also why the English prisoners "transported" to Australia died at such a high rate. the ship captain got a set price and if some died on the way, it was that much less food he had to provide. There was no penalty for dead prisoners or bonus for live ones.
John Henry
Blogger Fernandinande said...
Doesn't "human trafficking" generally mean helping someone sneak in somewhere they're not wanted?
Kind of like travel agents, aren't they? A guy in Nigeria wants to go to England but can't do so legally. So he pays someone to get him there.
What I don't get is why they are so upset when, having gotten there, they are outraged that the travelagent/smuggler expects to be paid.
John Henry
According to Wikipedia, Japan's population is 127 million. At the rate its population is declining, it is predicted to be 42 million in 2110.
How accurate is a prediction 95 years down the road? 95 years before, it was about 56 million. Would anyone then have predicted it would double?
Is there a "right" level of population? From 1910 to 1940, its population was between 50 and 73 million, and I doubt anyone was worried then about the culture dying out.
Perhaps what we're seeing is the same thing we saw here: a post-war boomer generation working its way through, and that the nation will return to a more moderate population more amiable to slower growth.
All cultures are equally valid.
All cultures are equally valid.
All cultures are equally valid.
(Repeat until unhappy thoughts disappear.)
I'm pretty sure white men invented slavery in the early days of the US of A.
Does that mean that people enslaving other people around the world, today, are cultural appropriators?
Which is the bigger sin, do you think: cultural appropriation or actual slaveholding?
Take a poll of kids at an elite liberal arts university--the results may surprise you!
Hey, I've got a great idea: Let's overthrow Libya and let the flowers of freedom blossom.
@Earnest Prole:
Hey, I've got a great idea: Let's overthrow Libya and let the flowers of freedom blossom.
Yawn. Old news. Overthrowing Syria is all the latest rage. And you be rest assured, it's going to be totally different from the last three times we overthrew regimes and absolute chaos ensued.
I would like to see more and better descriptions of what constitutes slavery and human trafficking, especially in Britain.
@Luke Lea:
I would like to see more and better descriptions of what constitutes slavery and human trafficking, especially in Britain.
Human Trafficking, Smuggling and Slavery
The biggest "cutting edge invention" the Arabs have produced is the suicide bomber
Stole the idea from the Japanese....
Stole the idea from the Japanese....
Close but nonetheless nearly a thousand years off.
Assassin: "A member of a Shia Muslim sect who at the time of the Crusades was sent out on a suicidal mission to murder prominent enemies."
Some time back there was an article in the Sunday Times magazine section about slavery in Mauritania. There are about a half million black slaves there. They have the misfortune of being the slaves of brown men, so it's not the kind of injustice that inspires much outrage. The article was a one off. It didn't attract much attention or follow up. Perhaps if some white men could get involved selling slaves in Libya or Mauritania, then more publicity could be generated and a subsequent movement to ban this atrocity would form. But the problem won't be solved until white men get involved as villains.
lots of migrants will be swept up into slave markets, or perish along the way, as long as the door to Europe remains open. inevitable
One of the side effects of Japan's demographic bust will be the rapid development of robots with AI. I can foresee unintended side effects. The development of a sex robot whose algorithms solve the conundrum of male female relationship problems will be a boon to humanity. However, such a robot will parodoxically further increase Japan's demographic problems. The future always takes odd and unforeseen turns.
Heck of a job, Hillary!
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