Originally posted by really
Two of the big reasons people buy slaves:
1. child soldiers;
2. sex slaves - they kidnap these women, children, and to a lesser degree men - they bring them somewhere where they are gang-raped to break their spirit. It is truly disgusting. Researching it was one of those moments you wished you weren't a human because you are in some way related to these kidnapping-rapist-scumbags.

[edit on 20-10-2009 by really]

This is exactly how I feel about it. It makes me better understand the impulse to dehumanize another person - because the fact that I know these slavers are humans is horrifying to my spirit.

Solution?

Pride. Power. Humanization.

Africa has horrible problems. Are these economic? NO. They aren't.

Africa has immense resources. Amazing land. And people dying by the tens of thousands a day from preventable problems.

There is only so much people from across the ocean can do.

But their own leaders, shakers and movers, they want to keep their own people down. Sometimes for their own good, sometimes for the good of their people, sometimes for cultural or religious reasons, sometimes just because they are evil mofos.

It isn't all "the first World establishment." It simply isn't.

Though sometimes our do-gooding fails. Kyoto is my current favourite example of this phenomena. Where by to "save the Earth" we pay the rich and powerful of developing nations to NOT develop. Hey, you do nothing, and we'll give you these Kyoto credits worth millions so that you won't compete with us. And somehow it was packaged as a GOOD thing.


Iran still has slave markets. Slaves are everywhere in every country. The people who do this are disgusting, and will be primarily stopped by severe punishment for those caught, AND in true capitalist fashion, punishing those who use or buy slaves severely. Very severely. Making the demand end of the cycle untenable is the true solution. Currently, people find it in themselves to tolerate or even condone the reasons why people would use or tolerate slavery.

I will not shrug and avert my eyes to human evil, and to tolerate its continuance.

Not to intentionally side track the discussion but these stories make me tend to think about religion and that sorta thing. Loving your neighbor as yourself is one of the central parts of Judaism and Christianity, but one can't help to feel as though believing in a singular, good God from which no evil comes from somehow degrades these people's lives even further and makes their suffering worse, interfering with this commandment really of "loving your neighbor as yourself".

There is a tendency to think that barbarism is in the past if you live in a industrialized country, but it's alive and well it seems. Ultimately, we're running on the same "equipment" as all the past generations who committed such atrocities. No concrete changes have really occurred within people as a whole it seems.

Only both Judaism and Christianity existed with slavery. Indeed, there are entire passages about how to keep and acquire slaves and who may be one. In the New Testament, a slave was returned to her owner (and certain sexual slavery) with the plea that her Master not beat her because she too was a Christian.

When it comes to religions - take the best and leave the rest.

Well to ad to this list a few hundred dollars well buy you a young Mexican girl 9, 10, 11, 12 years old...

we don't talk about it much but there are families who take in these kids to be house keepers cooks baby sitters etc... in exchange they get food clothes most times sent to school too...

we even have a law on the books that once one of these kids is enrolled in our school system that child cant be touched by Immigrations...

While I'm sure abuse does indeed happen, it cant all be purely innocent... among the Mexican American families, hosting a "visiting niece" from down south is a somewhat common practice as well as a status symbol

Disregarding any personal feelings about the War on Terror, the War on Drugs, the War in Iraq, the War in Afghanistan, if there is only ONE thing to go to war over, this is it.... how is this any different that the Nazi's enslaving Jews during WWII?

Where is the international outrage? Where is Normandy Beach as we go to liberate these people.

This topic makes me absolutely insane with anger.

Gosh golly gee people. How can you be so cold? Why is it none of you are considering the economic problems which drove these slave traders into the business or the psychological problems which motivate their customers to purchase the sexual services of three-year -olds.
Thank God for agencies like Acorn to assist them in helping to establish their business' by providing advice and assistance on purchasing brothels and filing taxes.
Do you believe there are people who actually are in favor of sending these people to prisons rather than to the doctors and psychoanalyst they need so much more.
True, some children may be inconvenienced but should we equate their lack of educational opportunities with the internal torment their dealers and customers must be experiencing. Come on guys. Show a little heart.
You conservatives are just so heartless I could scream.

Originally posted by Aeons
Only both Judaism and Christianity existed with slavery.

Erm, that's not true. Slavery was pretty much a way of life for much of Europe from at least the Iron Age straight through to a 1000 years ago and maybe later. Even the alleged seat of democracy, Ancient Greece had a slavery culture.

Originally posted by mckyle

Originally posted by MOTT the HOOPLE
But when you think about it we are all slaves to the economic monster in some form or another...

... Were you denied even the most basic levels of education?...You hit the nail on the head right here. The key to our salvation as a species is education.

Behavior patterns are learned in culturally/ethnocentric ways. The slave traders were children once and most likely slaves themselves.were they educated they would have had options.

The other thing people must realize is that evil must exist on our dimension. Without temptation there is no point to free will and we would learn much less during our encarnation of this life.

The challenge is the triumph of love over fear. We cannot overcome fear by wishing death to the perpetrators of evil. We must focus our energy on solutions.

Education both here in the 1st world and in every squalid village on the planet is the key. As things get worse next year, more people will find themselves waking up and realizing they are racked with guilt over the desire for meaningless things like a Play Station when the same amount of work that went into gathering the resources to buy it would rescue a slave and provide you with spiritual salvation.

You are wrong. We are all slaves. We have been conditioned to accept our fate as consumers of resources rather than givers of love. It may be less physically painful to sit on the couch and play video games on this dimension but the realization that you wasted your chance on this planet will be far more painful than the relatively short pain of even something as heinous as sodomy when you die and arrive back at the spiritual dimension.

The time to wake up is now. The blinders are coming off. We will all be faced with choices soon that will determine our fates for eternity.

I see it virtually everyday, and I can tell you that if you come to China for a few days, you'll realise the folly of your words.

Consider yourself lucky. You are in a position to give love in small gestures with big impacts. You know what you must do. Will you turn away or give the flower child some food and encouragement that she is not forgotten?



[edit on 20-10-2009 by mckyle]

Since man sat in a cave, there have been slaves of all kinds. Its not new, its not something that popped up in the 20th century.. its ingrained into every single society that's ever existed. If not openly, then "underground" ..

The first time I ever researched institutionalized child sex slave trading, was while researching working conditions of factories in the industrial revolution. Children forced to work in factories was bad enough, but what so often happened to the young girls (and boys) was appaling.

One could go as far as to say its in our nature to dominate other Humans in this way.. while we may see it as sick, disturbing, and unhuman behavior it sure is prevelent in ALL our histories, and rampant even today, an era we call "modernized".

It goes to show, the line between Human and Animal is far more distinct than ever... but which is worse? Not even the most barbaric of animals rapes, encages, murders and mutilates their counterparts....

And we call ourselves "Civilized".....

wow i never though there can be such thing..such thing in global scales..what the..waw..the least i can do is flag

Originally posted by Brainbow
just wondering, but if you were to buy one of these girls (or any of these people for sale :-/ ) but instead of use them, just take care of them and let them go, (help them) could you still be charged with slave trading? could you still be arrested for buying some one?

That would only serve to encourage the traffickers. So yes, you would still be arrested. If your intent was to really save someone from trafficking, then your first action should be to inform authorities that you know of such actions going on.

If you really wish to take care of the person(s) being sold, then you would need to then pursue it through the courts.

If the child was kidnapped, then the best thing you could hope for was that they would be returned to their family.

Originally posted by Aeons
Only both Judaism and Christianity existed with slavery. Indeed, there are entire passages about how to keep and acquire slaves and who may be one. In the New Testament, a slave was returned to her owner (and certain sexual slavery) with the plea that her Master not beat her because she too was a Christian.

When it comes to religions - take the best and leave the rest.

Much of Asia (both proper and the subcontinent), Africa, Europe and the Americas had slavery. Most cultures have slavery somewhere in their past (both as slaves and slave owners).