Emancipation Day, celebrated last Thursday, commemorates the millions of enslaved Africans uprooted and forced to work in the Americas by marking the end of slavery, at least in the British colonies, as countries like the US and Brazil took considerably longer to do the same.
Although the slave trade and all the horrors that came with it ended in the Americas in the 1800s and Mauritania, the last country in the world to make slavery illegal, did so in 1981, the exploitation of individuals remains a very real and modern problem.
According to Walk Free, an international campaign group, there are nearly 50 million people in the world today living in conditions akin to slavery. Based on its last survey in 2023, it estimates that 27.6 million people are living under some kind of forced labour, while 22 million are in a situation of forced marriage. Of the global total, Walk Free believes 25 per cent of those in such situations are children.
Slavery is illegal all over the world now, but the definition of modern slavery, although not set in law, covers both illegal and legal (but morally questionable) ways of exploitation of fellow human beings.
The definition covers forced labour, debt bondage (when workers end up owing their employers more than they can earn), slavery-like practices, and forced marriage. Or, through abuse of power, like when an employee cannot freely leave employment or the country where they are employed (sometimes, like in some Middle Eastern countries, supported by laws that allow the employer to retain a worker’s passport).
The more comforting news is that, according to the same Global Slavery Index by Walk Free, T&T fares better than many other countries in the Americas, with a level of vulnerability that is below the region’s average. This doesn’t mean we don’t have any cases of modern slavery; the latest data set available, related to 2021, suggests that 7,000 people were living in modern slavery in T&T in that year.
The report also scores the government 49 out of 100 in its response to modern slavery, with higher marks for its action on criminal justice mechanisms, while it scores lower for action on addressing risk in government and business supply chains. And it recommends the Government does more to tackle the issue, including the need to criminalise forced labour and the sexual exploitation of children in line with international conventions and to review laws or rules that make it harder for workers to leave abusive employers.
But responsibility for the elimination of modern slavery is not the Government’s alone—we all need to work together to stop it for good. Businesses must make sure they always employ people in a fair and non-abusive way (as the vast majority already do) and pay particular attention to their supply chains: they can and must demand the same standards from their suppliers as their own.
If not in place already, and just like the great work they did in relation to domestic violence, perhaps the time is right for the business chambers in T&T to develop policies and guidelines to deal with modern slavery in the workplace and through the supply chain.
The business community must also be ruthless in dealing with any employer caught behaving in ways that can be considered modern slavery, denouncing them and helping stop exploitative behaviours. Yes, employers will naturally seek higher productivity and lower costs as a way to remain competitive in the market, but there is a very big difference between that and the exploitation of fellow human beings.
And, just like with domestic violence or health and safety matters, employers and the labour movement can and must put their differences aside and work together to get rid of modern slavery on our shores, be it exploitative practices or forced marriage.
Meanwhile, as individuals, we can also think carefully about our own choices as consumers, as sometimes that absolute bargain we find in shops may have only been possible due to the high cost to those made to work under inhumane and exploitative conditions in sweatshops elsewhere in the world.
The fact is that, as a nation, we know all too well what it means to have one human being exploiting another, be it through slavery, indentureship, or through physical or psychological coercion. We also know how deep the scars these behaviours leave, first, for the victims, but also for generations hence and entire communities.
If Emancipation Day marks the sacrifices made by those who endured one of the most shameful and abhorrent acts in human history, it should also signal the hope and determination we should all share about righting society’s wrongs. Be it at home or in the workplace, we can and must do all we can to stop modern slavery in our shores and beyond.
