Awesome or Off-Putting is a weekly delve into cryptozoology, ufology, medical marvels, scientific wonders, secret societies, ghosts, myths, strange facts or just plain weird, weird goings-on.

This week: Strange Facts

Slavery was an ugly thing, but it’s over, right? It died out globally with the South’s surrender in the American Civil War, right? Wrong, it’s still here despite the fact that it was officially banned at the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practises Similar to Slavery. 

In fact, it’s been said that there are more slaves globally today than were taken during the entire 400 year history of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. It’s a horrible truth of which many of us are completely unaware.

Slavery is a horrible institution. We’re not stating any great
unknown fact there, but what is a widely unknown fact is that it is
still alive today, even though it’s been completely banned by most
countries of their own accord. For those slow to get on the anti
slavery train it’s been banned by global decrees – like the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Despite this, slavery seems to be a very hard monster to stamp out.

One of the places it still exists is Brazil. The slavery there is
in no way sanctioned by the government, as it was officially banned in
or around 1884. It somehow survives despite it’s illegality. The
slaves there are often used to clear rancher’s property of Amazon
overgrowth, and work in charcoal smelters making pig iron bars for
international sale. Estimates have the number of slaves in Brazil to
be at least 25,000, but the actual number may be much, much higher.
The Brazilian government is reported to attempt freeing slaves and to
prosecute their owners, but somehow their efforts are not completely
effective.

Switching to the country Sudan, as a boy Simon Deng was once told by his father:

"If the Arab men come, just run for your life."

When Mr. Deng was nine years old he was captured and turned into a
slave. He explains his experience in this excerpt from a speech he
made to a symposium on Victims of Jihad:

"I am standing before
you today, ladies and gentlemen, a victim of Sudanese Arab enslavement
in Sudan. I was a slave. I am not ashamed to say it. When I was nine
year’s old, my village was raided by Arab troops in the pay of
Khartoum. As we ran into the bush to escape I watched as childhood
friends were shot dead and the old and the weak who were unable to run
were burned alive in their huts. I was abducted and given to an Arab
family as a “gift.” A “gift,” ladies and gentlemen. When you look at
me, do you see a gift? Do I look like an object or a commodity? I am a
human being, a person created in the image of God, a simple truth the
jihadists did not and can not recognize."

In a separate statement to the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva,
Switzerland he said:

“I thought I could forgive and forget, but
villages are still being burnt, women are still being raped, and people
are being sold into slavery.  We Americans must act and act now.”

He escaped slavery when he was eleven years old, and is currently a
US citizen and an anti slavery activist. We’d suggest running his name
through Google to learn more on his personal depiction. It’s atrocious.

According to the two stories presented so far it would seem that
modern slavery is a travesty that only happens in non-first world
countries. That is not the case. Ex-US Secretary of State Colin Powell
once reported that around 50,000 men, women, and children are
trafficked into the US for sexual exploitation each year. He said this
specifically:

"Here and abroad, the victims of trafficking toil under
inhuman conditions – in brothels, sweatshops, fields and even in
private homes."

In Turkey, women stolen from such countries as Ukraine, Moldova,
Romania or Russia are often sold into the prostitution business -
usually working in Brothels. Turkish police there have broken up at
least ten different human trafficking networks. They were very
surprised that many of their tips came from men – more specifically the
brothel customers.

The cases of modern slavery and human trafficking are shockingly
extensive, but  there are people fighting it. In the US victims of
people trafficking can get help from the US government by dialing this
toll free number: 1-800-428-7581. Legal status in the US does not
matter. If you think you know someone who is a victim of human
trafficking in the US call: 1-888-373-7888. 

Internationally we’d suggest you try calling your local police
department. If you have any specific international contact information
for victims of the slave trade/human trafficking, we hope you’ll leave
it in the comments below.

We obviously place modern day slavery and human trafficking way inside the Off-Putting category.  Let’s help end it.

Read more:

Simon Deng – iAbolish

[story by Shawn Lindseth]