Slave labor still haunting the US

[dArKeR]

AP , WASHINGTON
Thursday, May 20, 2004,Page 6

As many as 17,500 people each year are brought to the US by human traffickers who trap them in slavery-like conditions for forced sex, sweatshop labor and domestic servitude, the US Department of Justice reported on Tuesday.

"In the United States, where slavery was outlawed nationally more than 130 years ago, this tragic phenomenon should no longer exist. Yet it does," the department said in a report to Congress.

In separate testimony on Capitol Hill, a top Homeland Security Department official estimated that human smuggling and trafficking generate some US$9.5 billion worldwide each year for criminal organizations that also deal in illicit drugs, weapons and money laundering.

"These untraced profits feed organized crime activities," John Torres, an official with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, told a subcommittee on immigration.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/05/20/2003156234

[moof]

1. drugs, weapons and money laundering ?

" $9.5 billion worldwide each year for criminal organizations that also deal in illicit drugs, weapons and money laundering. "

wonder if the bfee is #1 in that group ?

[Voltaire99]

2. You don't have to look to criminals to find slavery in America

Ever been in a Wal-Mart? Ever visited a military post in a shithole town? Ever seen convicts working for peanuts for major corporations?

Slavery and freedom are fluid definitions.

[saigon68]

4. Your analysis is impeccable

WAL-MART is CHINA"S PRISON SLAVE LABOR RETAIL OUTLET

Federal Prison Industries is the AMERIKAN version of the CHINESE Model

Shit hole military towns are vice ridden dens of iniquity.

[Robert Oak]

3. add engineers and scientists in the mix now

I'm surprised they announced it and didn't attribute the practice
as being free trade and "good for America".

[no_hypocrisy]

5. I wouldn't debate the premise that this country has not gone a day

without the "contribution" of slave labor in one form or another since its inception. The form of the slave labor post-Civil War is just not legally enforceable.

[0007]

6. For a country that hates slavery and that demands justice for everyone

I find it strange that corporate America goes to third world counties to keep our CEO well heeled while the workers in this country are left out of the equation. While junior tells the unfortunates one to get re-trained.

[PATRICK]

7. two damning comments

This parallels exactly how we do not control the machinery of interior terrorism either. Second, this is a rather blatant embarrassment for Bush who- during his speech to the UN to justify the war sidetracked into a sermon against world slavery- about which he did nothing much less look at our own little problem.

Hypocrisy- if we could market it we would have a balance of trade surplus forever.