Exploitation of Children -- Horror of the Modern World
[It was common practice in the old days for children to work in the U.S. -- farming was our major enterprise and our summer school vacations were scheduled to accommodate children helping out with all the chores involved in getting in the crops that would sustain families over the year. I grew up in an agricultural part of Connecticut and did farm work, myself, with my childhood friend of that time whose father ran the farm of a prosperous neighbor. The work could be hard, some times a bit dangerous, but I greatly enjoyed getting in the hay, feeding the stock and whatever.
However, with the advent of the industrial revolution, children here and elsewhere in the industrializing world were put to more nefarious and deadly types of labor -- working in the textile mills, participating in digging out the coal (their short statures were an advantage in low coal mine tunnels following the lode) -- but both these jobs were cold, hard, and deadly diseases killed off children, stunted their growth, and made life the sort of hell that we have now imposed on animals with our agribusiness mass production of chickens, hogs, calf and lamb meat delicacies and other horrors.
And now human children are being enslaved around the world for comparable work, prostitution, and other horrors once again with our murderous global economy. Read the following report on the Haiti that we 'liberated' most recently again with our troops from its democratically elected leadership. Ed Kent]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1575268,00.html?gus
rc=rss
Haitian children sold as cheap labourers and prostitutes for little more
than £50
Dominican Republic accused of turning a blind eye to thriving trade in
youngsters
Gary Younge in Santo Domingo
Thursday September 22, 2005 The Guardian
On market day in Dajabón, a bustling Dominican town on the Haitian
border, you can pick up many bargains if you know where to look. You can
haggle the price of a live chicken down to 40 pesos (72p); wrestle 10lb
of macaroni from 60 to 50 pesos; and, with some discreet inquiries, buy
a Haitian child for the equivalent of £54.22.
"You just ask around town," says Hilda Pe-a, who monitors border
crossings for the Jesuit Refugee Service. "People know who the scouts
are. You just tell them what kind of child you are looking for and they
can bring across whatever it is that you want."
There is a thriving trade in Haitian children in the Dominican
Republic, where they are mostly used for domestic service, agricultural
work or prostitution. Eight-year-old Jesus Josef was one of them. Numbed
by a mixture of trauma and shyness, this small boy with huge eyes cannot
recall how he left his three brothers and mother in Haiti
and ended up doing domestic work for a Dominican family in Barahona, 120
miles from the capital, Santo Domingo.
Torture
Jesus sits quietly as Father Pedro Ruquoy, who runs a refuge near
Barahona, tells how he escaped from the family and ran away to a local
hospice. When he arrived his neck was twisted from carrying heavy loads
on his shoulder and the marks on his slender torso suggested
ill-treatment. The Dominican family found out where he was and came to
the hospice demanding either his return or 10,000 pesos for the loss.
"They used him as a slave," says Mr Ruquoy. "And they tortured him."
Nobody knows quite how many Haitian children like Jesus there are in the
Dominican Republic. A Unicef report in 2002 put the figure at around
2,500, although some NGOs think it might be twice that. Most boys under
the age of 12 end up begging or shoe shining and giving their proceeds
to gang leaders; most girls of that age are used as
domestic servants. Older boys are taken to work in construction or
agriculture; teenage girls often end up in prostitution.
Tensions have long existed between the two countries that share the
island of Hispaniola. In May, and then again last month, the Dominican
Republic summarily deported thousands of Haitians, many of whom had the
right to stay. A former Haitian consul to the republic, Edwin Paraison,
says the situation had not been this bad since the former Dominican
military leader Rafael Trujillo massacred 20,000 Haitian sugar cane
workers in 1937. "This is the first time regular people are trying to
run Haitians out of the country," he says. "There is an organised
campaign to reject Haitian presence."
But even as Haitians are reviled, they are also needed for their cheap
labour. The manner in which the children arrive varies. Some are
kidnapped but most often their parents not only know, but actually pay
"busones" or scouts to ensure their safe passage in the hope that they
will have a better life.
"Half of all Haitians struggle to eat even once a day," says Helen
Spraos, Christian Aid's Haiti representative. "It doesn't take much to
push people over the brink. If the rains fail or someone falls ill, they
have to sell what little they have - perhaps a pig or a goat - to buy
medicines. Eventually they have to sell their land. Once they reach
rock bottom, the one way they can provide for their children is by
sending them to live in the cities or in the Dominican Republic. There
at least they may be fed and have some prospects for making a living."
Border
Such stories are familiar in the narrow alleyways in the barrios of
Christo Rey, an area of Santo Domingo. Nine-year-old Louseny's mother
died when she was a baby and she was raised by her grandmother in
central Haiti. Last month, her grandmother paid her "aunt" to bring her
over the border and leave her with people Louseny did not know. Louseny
says she misses her home.
Florencia Talon, who looks after 10-year-old Violetta after her mother
left her, says people have approached her in the street to ask her to
take in children. "In most cases the Haitian family is told that the
child will go to someone who will help raise the child," says Father
Jose Nu-ez, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Santo Domingo.
"They are told they will get an education and have a better chance. But
this actually happens very, very rarely. In most cases they are verbally
or physically abused and mistreated."
Getting them over the border is the easy part. According to Unicef,
about a third of trafficked children come through the mountains; the
rest go through official border checkpoints. On market day in Dajabón,
the only papers you need to get across the bridge that links the two
countries are peso notes to bribe the border guards. Those who are
turned back simply wade across the Massacre river.
"The scouts are paid around 600 pesos, half of which goes to the scout
and half of which is paid to the immigration authorities as a bribe,"
says Angelica Lopez, the Jesuit Refugee Service director in Dajabón.
"The Dominican state and the military are completely complicit in the
trafficking." Once across, the child will be passed through series of
more informal networks until they are placed with a family, gang or into
work.
There is a law against trafficking in the Dominican Republic, but it is
rarely enforced and the authorities remain in denial. "There is no
trafficking," says Juan Casilla, the state prosecutor for Dajabón. "I
have never had one case of trafficking lodged with my office."
Mr Ruquoy says the sugar companies are also complicit, paying Haitian
traffickers 2,000 Haitian gourdes (£26.44) for each worker.
Over at the sugar fields near Barahona, the smell of burning cane stems
and the sound of slashing machetes suggest a scene from another century.
Hundreds of men, their ragged clothes held together by sweat and grime,
hack away beneath a high sun and above the smouldering stems, which are
easier to cut when burned. From 6am until 6pm they are there, swinging,
yanking, slicing and burning for about £1 a day. Ask any of them and
they will tell you they are 18. Look and you will see that about one in
eight could not possibly be older than 16.
Cheated
Jesus Nord, 15, used to be one of them. Two years ago he paid a Haitian
scout 50 gourdes to smuggle him over the border and then went to work in
the fields for a year. After being cheated of his earnings and
physically abused, he left. "I was never there when they weighed the
sugar so they would give me less then they owed," he says. "They also
used to beat me to make me work faster."
The Barahona refinery, the Consorcio Azucarero Central, is part of a
consortium, whose main shareholder in Guatemala could not be reached for
comment.
The trafficking of Haitian children represents the bottom rung of a
migratory ladder through the Americas that sees Dominicans striving to
get to Puerto Rico, and Puerto Ricans moving to the US. "The market for
cheap labour keeps people moving," says Mr Nu-ez. "Since so many other
countries have closed their doors to Haitians the only chance they have
is to go to the country that is slightly less poor than Haiti and the
easiest to get to. The economy could not function without them. But it
takes a terrible toll on the individuals."
Haiti
Population 8.1m (July 2005)
Infant mortality rate: 73.45 deaths for every 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 52.92 years
Politics Interim president, Boniface Alexandre, sworn in after former
leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile in February 2004
GDP: $12bn (2004)
Real growth rate: -3.5% (2004)
Labour force Agriculture 66%, industry 9%, services 25%
Unemployment: widespread; more than two-thirds of the labour force do
not have formal jobs (2002).
Dominican Republic
Population 8.9m (July 2005)
Infant mortality rate: 32.38 deaths for every 1,000 live births
Life expectancy at birth: 67.26 years
Politics Leonel Fernandez began his second non-consecutive term as
president in August 2004, after winning elections in May for the
Dominican Liberation party
GDP: $55bn (2004)
Real growth rate: 1.7% (2004)
Labour Force Agriculture 17%, industry 24.3%, services and government
58.7% (1998)
Unemployment rate: 17% (2004).
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp
However, with the advent of the industrial revolution, children here and elsewhere in the industrializing world were put to more nefarious and deadly types of labor -- working in the textile mills, participating in digging out the coal (their short statures were an advantage in low coal mine tunnels following the lode) -- but both these jobs were cold, hard, and deadly diseases killed off children, stunted their growth, and made life the sort of hell that we have now imposed on animals with our agribusiness mass production of chickens, hogs, calf and lamb meat delicacies and other horrors.
And now human children are being enslaved around the world for comparable work, prostitution, and other horrors once again with our murderous global economy. Read the following report on the Haiti that we 'liberated' most recently again with our troops from its democratically elected leadership. Ed Kent]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1575268,00.html?gus
rc=rss
Haitian children sold as cheap labourers and prostitutes for little more
than £50
Dominican Republic accused of turning a blind eye to thriving trade in
youngsters
Gary Younge in Santo Domingo
Thursday September 22, 2005 The Guardian
On market day in Dajabón, a bustling Dominican town on the Haitian
border, you can pick up many bargains if you know where to look. You can
haggle the price of a live chicken down to 40 pesos (72p); wrestle 10lb
of macaroni from 60 to 50 pesos; and, with some discreet inquiries, buy
a Haitian child for the equivalent of £54.22.
"You just ask around town," says Hilda Pe-a, who monitors border
crossings for the Jesuit Refugee Service. "People know who the scouts
are. You just tell them what kind of child you are looking for and they
can bring across whatever it is that you want."
There is a thriving trade in Haitian children in the Dominican
Republic, where they are mostly used for domestic service, agricultural
work or prostitution. Eight-year-old Jesus Josef was one of them. Numbed
by a mixture of trauma and shyness, this small boy with huge eyes cannot
recall how he left his three brothers and mother in Haiti
and ended up doing domestic work for a Dominican family in Barahona, 120
miles from the capital, Santo Domingo.
Torture
Jesus sits quietly as Father Pedro Ruquoy, who runs a refuge near
Barahona, tells how he escaped from the family and ran away to a local
hospice. When he arrived his neck was twisted from carrying heavy loads
on his shoulder and the marks on his slender torso suggested
ill-treatment. The Dominican family found out where he was and came to
the hospice demanding either his return or 10,000 pesos for the loss.
"They used him as a slave," says Mr Ruquoy. "And they tortured him."
Nobody knows quite how many Haitian children like Jesus there are in the
Dominican Republic. A Unicef report in 2002 put the figure at around
2,500, although some NGOs think it might be twice that. Most boys under
the age of 12 end up begging or shoe shining and giving their proceeds
to gang leaders; most girls of that age are used as
domestic servants. Older boys are taken to work in construction or
agriculture; teenage girls often end up in prostitution.
Tensions have long existed between the two countries that share the
island of Hispaniola. In May, and then again last month, the Dominican
Republic summarily deported thousands of Haitians, many of whom had the
right to stay. A former Haitian consul to the republic, Edwin Paraison,
says the situation had not been this bad since the former Dominican
military leader Rafael Trujillo massacred 20,000 Haitian sugar cane
workers in 1937. "This is the first time regular people are trying to
run Haitians out of the country," he says. "There is an organised
campaign to reject Haitian presence."
But even as Haitians are reviled, they are also needed for their cheap
labour. The manner in which the children arrive varies. Some are
kidnapped but most often their parents not only know, but actually pay
"busones" or scouts to ensure their safe passage in the hope that they
will have a better life.
"Half of all Haitians struggle to eat even once a day," says Helen
Spraos, Christian Aid's Haiti representative. "It doesn't take much to
push people over the brink. If the rains fail or someone falls ill, they
have to sell what little they have - perhaps a pig or a goat - to buy
medicines. Eventually they have to sell their land. Once they reach
rock bottom, the one way they can provide for their children is by
sending them to live in the cities or in the Dominican Republic. There
at least they may be fed and have some prospects for making a living."
Border
Such stories are familiar in the narrow alleyways in the barrios of
Christo Rey, an area of Santo Domingo. Nine-year-old Louseny's mother
died when she was a baby and she was raised by her grandmother in
central Haiti. Last month, her grandmother paid her "aunt" to bring her
over the border and leave her with people Louseny did not know. Louseny
says she misses her home.
Florencia Talon, who looks after 10-year-old Violetta after her mother
left her, says people have approached her in the street to ask her to
take in children. "In most cases the Haitian family is told that the
child will go to someone who will help raise the child," says Father
Jose Nu-ez, the director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in Santo Domingo.
"They are told they will get an education and have a better chance. But
this actually happens very, very rarely. In most cases they are verbally
or physically abused and mistreated."
Getting them over the border is the easy part. According to Unicef,
about a third of trafficked children come through the mountains; the
rest go through official border checkpoints. On market day in Dajabón,
the only papers you need to get across the bridge that links the two
countries are peso notes to bribe the border guards. Those who are
turned back simply wade across the Massacre river.
"The scouts are paid around 600 pesos, half of which goes to the scout
and half of which is paid to the immigration authorities as a bribe,"
says Angelica Lopez, the Jesuit Refugee Service director in Dajabón.
"The Dominican state and the military are completely complicit in the
trafficking." Once across, the child will be passed through series of
more informal networks until they are placed with a family, gang or into
work.
There is a law against trafficking in the Dominican Republic, but it is
rarely enforced and the authorities remain in denial. "There is no
trafficking," says Juan Casilla, the state prosecutor for Dajabón. "I
have never had one case of trafficking lodged with my office."
Mr Ruquoy says the sugar companies are also complicit, paying Haitian
traffickers 2,000 Haitian gourdes (£26.44) for each worker.
Over at the sugar fields near Barahona, the smell of burning cane stems
and the sound of slashing machetes suggest a scene from another century.
Hundreds of men, their ragged clothes held together by sweat and grime,
hack away beneath a high sun and above the smouldering stems, which are
easier to cut when burned. From 6am until 6pm they are there, swinging,
yanking, slicing and burning for about £1 a day. Ask any of them and
they will tell you they are 18. Look and you will see that about one in
eight could not possibly be older than 16.
Cheated
Jesus Nord, 15, used to be one of them. Two years ago he paid a Haitian
scout 50 gourdes to smuggle him over the border and then went to work in
the fields for a year. After being cheated of his earnings and
physically abused, he left. "I was never there when they weighed the
sugar so they would give me less then they owed," he says. "They also
used to beat me to make me work faster."
The Barahona refinery, the Consorcio Azucarero Central, is part of a
consortium, whose main shareholder in Guatemala could not be reached for
comment.
The trafficking of Haitian children represents the bottom rung of a
migratory ladder through the Americas that sees Dominicans striving to
get to Puerto Rico, and Puerto Ricans moving to the US. "The market for
cheap labour keeps people moving," says Mr Nu-ez. "Since so many other
countries have closed their doors to Haitians the only chance they have
is to go to the country that is slightly less poor than Haiti and the
easiest to get to. The economy could not function without them. But it
takes a terrible toll on the individuals."
Haiti
Population 8.1m (July 2005)
Infant mortality rate: 73.45 deaths for every 1,000 live births
Life expectancy: 52.92 years
Politics Interim president, Boniface Alexandre, sworn in after former
leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide went into exile in February 2004
GDP: $12bn (2004)
Real growth rate: -3.5% (2004)
Labour force Agriculture 66%, industry 9%, services 25%
Unemployment: widespread; more than two-thirds of the labour force do
not have formal jobs (2002).
Dominican Republic
Population 8.9m (July 2005)
Infant mortality rate: 32.38 deaths for every 1,000 live births
Life expectancy at birth: 67.26 years
Politics Leonel Fernandez began his second non-consecutive term as
president in August 2004, after winning elections in May for the
Dominican Liberation party
GDP: $55bn (2004)
Real growth rate: 1.7% (2004)
Labour Force Agriculture 17%, industry 24.3%, services and government
58.7% (1998)
Unemployment rate: 17% (2004).
--
"A war is just if there is no alternative, and the resort
to arms is legitimate if they represent your last hope." (Livy)
--
Ed Kent 718-951-5324 (voice mail only) [blind copies]
--
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CollegeConversation
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PeaceEfforts
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/EndingPoverty
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/440neighborhood
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/StudentConcerns
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AcademicFreedom
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PrivacyRights
http://BlogByEdKent.blogspot.com/
http://www.bloggernews.net/blognews.asp
posted by Ed Kent at 8:03 AM
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