Modern Day Slavery Issues: Conflict Diamonds & Sweatshops

Here is my very late post for week nine's essay.


This week, we had to write about examples of modern day slavery. Because most people in the United States live a free, wealthy, and good life, I want this essay to focus on the slaveries that we, as Americans, might be supporting unknowingly. These issues include conflict diamonds and forced labor.

Conflict diamonds, also known as blood diamonds, are defined by the United Nations as “diamonds that originate from areas controlled by forces or factions opposed to legitimate and internationally recognized governments, and are used to fund military action in opposition to those governments, or in contravention of the decisions of the Security Council" ("Conflict Diamonds"). Conflict diamonds are mined predominantly in central and western Africa, where “tyrant groups take over” diamond “mines and the” surrounding “villages, forcing villagers into slavery” (Ryan). The diamonds are sold to “international diamond trading centers in Europe” who knowingly fund “this horror by buying up to $125 million worth of diamonds a year” but care more about the carat than the lives lost. ("Blood Diamonds"). The issue of conflict diamonds came to public light in the late 1990’s during the Sierra Leone uprising in western Africa, funded by Liberia. “Between 1991 and 2002, the country suffered a brutal, ten-year civil war during which the Revolutionary United Front (RUF) committed horrendous atrocities” to gain control of the country's diamond mines. The RUF terrorists’ signature method of terrorizing was amputation. “Thousands of prisoner-laborers worked to exhaustion, digging up the gems from muddy open-pit mines. Many of their lives “ended…in shallow graves, executed for suspected theft, for lack of production, or simply for sport” and “local citizens were left to fend for themselves against bloodthirsty and drugged child soldiers. Commanders often cut the children's arms and packed the wounds with cocaine; marijuana was everywhere.” Tens of thousands of people were left dead, mutilated, or forced to flee the country. Throughout this time, blood diamonds “represented 4% of the world’s diamond production” and were mined in the countries of “Angola, Liberia, Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of Congo” ("Conflict Diamonds"). “The profits” from these diamonds “also filled the coffers of Al Qaeda, and possibly Hezbollah–terrorist organizations notorious for committing human rights violations, including crimes against humanity” ("Blood Diamonds"). Weapons purchased from “the gems the rebels sold unimpeded to terrorist and corporate trader alike—allowed the RUF to fight off government soldiers, hired mercenaries, peacekeepers from a regional West African reaction force,” and “British paratroopers.” Finally, in October 1999, the United Nations stepped in and launched the Mission in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), the most “expansive and expensive peacekeeping mission the U.N. has ever deployed.” Since then, numerous efforts, particularly the Kimberly Process, have led to reduction in the sales of conflict diamonds to less than 1%, but “efforts to end the trade in conflict diamonds” were hindered during “the Bush administration” which was “reluctant to impede business in any way or have its hands tied by any international agreements, even when the U.S. diamond industry called for it” ("Blood Diamonds").

Another issue Americans fall victim to blindly supporting is forced labor. Recent studies show that “forced labor occurs in at least 90 cities across the United States, the researchers found, and at any given time, 10,000 or more people are forced to toil in sweat shops, clean homes, labor on farms, or work as prostitutes or strippers.” Statistics have revealed, “forty-six percent of those trapped in forced labor in America are found in prostitution and sex services…another 27 percent are domestic workers, and one in 10 works in agriculture.” Yes, sweatshops are STILL present in modern day American, making up 5% of work in our economy. “Restaurant and hotel work makes up 4 percent” and “sexual exploitation of children represents 3 percent” (Gilmore). Most sweatshops are “a common fixture in other large cities that have large communities of immigrants” in states like New York, Texas, Florida, and California. People hire the immigrants as “undocumented workers” and force them to work under harsh, cramped conditions. The laborers are threatened through means of “verbal abuse, beatings, and sexual assault” but rely on their captors for money to repay their smugglers who transported them into the United States (Gilmore). The Department of Labor “estimates that about half of the 22,000 garment contractors registered in the US are paid less than minimum wage, 2/3 do not receive overtime pay, and more than 1/3 work in environments with serious safety and health violations. Any workers who try to protest their poor working conditions run the risk of being fired.” Even more shocking, the DOL approximates that “more than half of the 7,000 garment factories in New York City are now sweatshops.” In 1995, a federal raid on a sweatshop took place in El Monte, California, and it was discovered that “72 immigrants from Thailand who were working for $.69 per hour, were locked inside an apartment complex that was surrounded on all sides by razor wire. The workers had been threatened with being raped or killed if they stopped working” (Buzzle Staff & Agencies). More recently, this past August, “over 100 garments workers rallied outside Great Wall Corp in Long Island City, Queens. Great Wall is a garment factory and subcontractor for Silver Fashions Inc. Workers say they frequently worked 100 hour weeks for as little as $300 and were even forced to work overnight at the factory. Last November, six workers from Great Wall filed a lawsuit stating that the company violated “several federal and state labor laws. A month later, the company terminated all the workers who filed suit plus an additional 50 workers” (Gooljar). Other cases documented include “a Berkeley, Calif., businessman who enslaved young girls and women for sex and to work in his restaurant; a Florida employer who threatened violence to force hundreds of Mexican and Guatemalan workers to harvest fruit; and two couples in Washington, D.C., who brought Cameroonian teenagers to the United States with the promise of a better education and then forced them to work 14 hours a day as domestic servants, without pay and under the threat of deportation.” Yes, federal laws have been established to “combat these crimes” but more is required (Gilmore).

This is where we come into play. Both these issues, conflict diamonds and forced labor, sweatshops specifically, can be terminated with our awareness.

Sources:

"Blood Diamonds". Amnesty International USA. October 28, 2009 .

Buzzle Staff & Agencies, "Sweatshops: No Longer a Thing of the Past". Buzzle.com. October 28, 2009 .

"Conflict Diamonds". World Diamond Council. October 28, 2009

Gilmore, Janet. "Modern slavery thriving in the U.S.". UC Berkley News. October 28, 2009 .

Gooljar, Jason. " There are still sweatshops in the United States of America". October 28, 2009 .

Ryan, Allison. "How to Recognize a Non Conflict Diamond". Articlesbase. October 28, 2009 .