Slavery is alive and well in Eritrea, and investments from Europe, the Middle East, and China, keep the system running. What will it take for the world to push back?
The eyes of the American people seldom stray beyond these borders, and when they do, it tends to be in the direction of others who live lives very much like their own in places within the NATO sphere of influence. This is true even of the most cosmopolitan observers.
This is why, even if we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would not expect much of anything to be made of a recent lawsuit filed in the Netherlands on behalf of a group of expatriate Eritreans. The suit alleges — I almost hesitate to employ the standard journalese here because the facts do not seem to be at issue — that forced labor is being used in the construction of roads and other infrastructure projects in the east African nation that are financed by the European Union.
There is certainly no dispute about the presence of forced labor in Eritrea. With the exception of North Korea, one of only two countries it ranks ahead of in the World Press Freedom Index, it has the highest rate of forced labor in the entire world. Estimates suggest that nearly one in ten Eritreans are subject to unpaid state-mandated labor. This takes a variety of forms. In some cases military conscripts are required to perform non-military labor on behalf of the state; in others, it is a more direct process of enlisting civilians to do construction and other work. A sizable number of Eritreans in both groups are taken by the government directly from the country's public schools, where attendance is compulsory. This includes both teachers and children.
These practices are not new. They have been denounced by human rights observers around the world, including the United Nations, which has called the program "tantamount to slavery."
At the risk of quibbling unnecessarily, I would like to suggest that the qualifier here is unnecessary, as are common designations such as "modern slavery." There is nothing especially contemporary about slavery in Eritrea today. Like the chattel slavery practiced in this country in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is the direct result of globalized free trade. Just as the Whig magnates of Manchester and Birmingham and the financiers of London made possible the spoliation carried out by South Carolina planters, so too does investment from Europe, the Middle East, and, especially, China allow the dictatorial regime in Eritrea to enslave its own citizens. So far from being a horrifying aberration, slavery was and remains an essential part of the borderless capitalism that many economists consider the greatest liberating force in the history of mankind.
Full story here.
The eyes of the American people seldom stray beyond these borders, and when they do, it tends to be in the direction of others who live lives very much like their own in places within the NATO sphere of influence. This is true even of the most cosmopolitan observers.
This is why, even if we were not in the middle of a pandemic, I would not expect much of anything to be made of a recent lawsuit filed in the Netherlands on behalf of a group of expatriate Eritreans. The suit alleges — I almost hesitate to employ the standard journalese here because the facts do not seem to be at issue — that forced labor is being used in the construction of roads and other infrastructure projects in the east African nation that are financed by the European Union.
There is certainly no dispute about the presence of forced labor in Eritrea. With the exception of North Korea, one of only two countries it ranks ahead of in the World Press Freedom Index, it has the highest rate of forced labor in the entire world. Estimates suggest that nearly one in ten Eritreans are subject to unpaid state-mandated labor. This takes a variety of forms. In some cases military conscripts are required to perform non-military labor on behalf of the state; in others, it is a more direct process of enlisting civilians to do construction and other work. A sizable number of Eritreans in both groups are taken by the government directly from the country's public schools, where attendance is compulsory. This includes both teachers and children.
These practices are not new. They have been denounced by human rights observers around the world, including the United Nations, which has called the program "tantamount to slavery."
At the risk of quibbling unnecessarily, I would like to suggest that the qualifier here is unnecessary, as are common designations such as "modern slavery." There is nothing especially contemporary about slavery in Eritrea today. Like the chattel slavery practiced in this country in the 18th and 19th centuries, it is the direct result of globalized free trade. Just as the Whig magnates of Manchester and Birmingham and the financiers of London made possible the spoliation carried out by South Carolina planters, so too does investment from Europe, the Middle East, and, especially, China allow the dictatorial regime in Eritrea to enslave its own citizens. So far from being a horrifying aberration, slavery was and remains an essential part of the borderless capitalism that many economists consider the greatest liberating force in the history of mankind.
Full story here.
