Robert Buddan, ContributorJAMAICANS REFLECT once again on Emancipation and we do so at a time when human trafficking has become topical. Human trafficking has been called modern day slavery and the Americans say that its prevention should constitute the 'abolitionist movement of the 21st Century'.
The countries of the Commonwealth, linked together by colonialism, human trafficking and plantation agriculture, now have a Commonwealth Plan to Eradicate Trafficking in Persons. Through this, countries of the Commonwealth are engaged in the continuing process of global emancipation. The United Nations recognises an International Day for the Abolition of Slavery (December 2) but it needs to do more to raise consciousness about past slavery and its modern forms.
FOR GLOBAL EMANCIPATION
Emancipation has always suffered reversals and remains far from complete. The French Revolution (1789) was the first occasion on which national emancipation was declared and this applied to slaves in the French empire. However, the counter-revolutionary government withdrew the Emancipation Proclamation nd slavery was soon re-imposed in Guadeloupe and Martinique. The Haitian revolutionaries, however, fought to maintain their freedom and to win independence. But sadly today there are reports that Haitians are being forced into slavery as cane cutters.
Emancipation in the British colonies was achieved in 1834, freeing nearly 1.5 million people. But Britain's commitment to freedom remained in question. An apprenticeship system kept full freedom at bay until 1838 and although the British campaigned for abolition in the French and Spanish empires their intention was to protect the British economy against competition from these slave-based economies. To stay in the competition, the British turned to another form of human trafficking - indentureship, a system not far removed from slavery.
The French conceded emancipation in its colonies in 1848, the Spanish in 1880, the United States in 1865 (although some U.S. states granted emancipation as early as 1783) and Brazil in 1888. But in no case did systems of forced labour, servitude and colonialism end.
In fact, the Portuguese empire only abolished slavery in Angola in the 1960s, as did Saudi Arabia. Privileged Muslim families continue to own slaves even in places where slavery is legally abolished. In parts of Asia and Africa, slavery still exists. It might not be plantation slavery and it might shade into other forms of servitude that are more broadly covered under human trafficking. Slavery exists in Sudan, for instance and in many civil wars, young men are forced to join armies, a form of human trafficking. However, the main route of modern human trafficking is between South Asia and the Persian Gulf states.
Plantation slavery has been abolished in the Caribbean and human trafficking is not a major problem in the region, despite what the State Department claims. The United States' concern with human trafficking seems to be more about controlling immigration and inventing yet another weapon to threaten sanctions. If this is not the case, then it needs to pay more attention to slavery where it really exists.
CHILD SLAVES
The U.S. itself reported in 1993 that 90,000 blacks were owned by north African Arabs. Arabs in Sudan's north have traditionally considered it a right to own slaves and they get them from among the Africans in Sudan's south. But African people themselves are selling each other into slavery among black African states. UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children are being sold into slavery in West Africa each year.
The problem exists in Asia as well. In India as many as 300,000 'carpet slaves' children kidnapped and sold into forced labour to weave carpets for food is a documented fact. In Pakistan, poor tenants indebted to rich landowners are sometimes sold to recover these debts or shackled in leg-irons to work off the debt. There might be 50,000 of them in Pakistan.
Closer to home, reports suggest that the army of the Dominican Republic (DR) routinely picks up Haitians during the cane-cutting season forcing them to work in the canefields of the DR. The DR has a long history of racism directed against Haitians and since a million Haitians live on the margin of society in the DR, it is easy for them to be forced into bonded labour by the Dominican army.
Now that the Dominican Republic has expressed interest in becoming a full member of CARICOM, the CARICOM Secretariat should investigate these claims before it accepts the DR's membership. Not only would such a practice violate CARICOM's Charter of Civil Society but slave labour in the DR cannot be allowed to compete with free labour in the region's agricultural markets.
It is mind boggling that the U.S. would list Jamaica in the same category with notorious countries like Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates when it comes to human trafficking. In fact, the State Department seriously underestimates the number of people in the world who are victims of human trafficking and it needs to count the victims of human trafficking in the developed countries themselves. The UN estimates that the United States and Europe earn half of the US$30 billion profit from human trafficking.
CARICOM AND EMANCIPATION
It would be fitting for Jamaica's Prime Minister to use Emancipation Park as the platform from which to invite CARICOM to designate August 1, CARICOM's Emancipation Day since this is a day and event in history that the English-speaking member countries share. It would be appropriate under the coming single market, which will signify another victory for Caribbean freedom, the free movement of people.
It would be nice if the Prime Minister, as chairman of the G77 and China, the largest coalition of developing countries, should invite the countries of the Middle Passage (trade in slaves between Africa and the Americas), to turn that tragic traffic into south-south trade, a trade that would be fair and conducted within the Doha Round bearing in mind issues concerning the sugar industry and agriculture.
For the first generation of Jamaica's emancipated people, these would be real victories. It was they who first celebrated Emancipation, passionately though unofficially, when the colonial government failed to do so.
The next way to honour the struggles of the emancipated people is by making sugar, not the curse on people's lives it once was, but a real door to social and economic freedom. These people struggled against the mono crop sugar plantation economy as the planter class, narrow in outlook, stubbornly clung to King Sugar. Jamaicans organised and constantly petitioned the colonial Government to diversify the economy in the decades after Emancipation. They wanted industrial schools, manufacturing plants, and assistance in exporting to the U.S.
We have now agreed that we must diversify the sugar industry itself. If we can do this successfully we will be able to finally emancipate ourselves from the link between sugar and slavery.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI. You can send your comments to robert.Buddan@uwimona.edu.jm or infocus@gleanerjm.com
