财富中文网 >> 商业

全球仍然还有4,000万奴隶,如何让他们重获自由?

分享: [译文]

From the gulags of North Korea to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria and the brothels of Eastern Europe, an estimated 40.3 million people are enslaved worldwide. Modern slavery spans every continent and plagues major industries, including cotton, coffee, and mining. Despite feeding off of poor and vulnerable populations, the practice generates a staggering $150 billion for traffickers per year—an average of $3,722 per victim.

Governments, NGOs, and multinational corporations have already begun collaborating to help end modern slavery. But more is needed to end this scourge—both through tougher law enforcement and better transparency in business practices.

A new InfoGuide produced by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) offers an in-depth look at the heinous world of modern slavery. Through victim testimonials, along with maps, graphics, and teaching tools, the guide exposes readers to the realities of the modern slave trade and the factors that continue to drive it in the 21st century.

Fueled by poverty, conflict, displacement, and the global population boom, modern slavery can take several harmful forms: sexual exploitation, bonded labor, domestic servitude, or forced marriage. And while men are affected, close to three-quarters of trafficking victims are women and girls. One in four victims is a child. While the practice doesn’t discriminate across racial or ethnic lines, most victims come from impoverished communities, where a lack of viable economic options propels them toward the traffickers’ false and dangerous promises of a better future.

Among the survivors introduced by the CFR InfoGuide is Thanapun, a former fishing boat worker in Thailand. Recruiters in the fishing industry routinely offer false promises of lucrative jobs to migrants, who become trapped in dangerous and abusive jobs. According to Thanapun, workers on the boat were denied freedom and deprived of adequate sleep. Many fell into the sea due to hazardous conditions, yet their deaths were never tracked because they were working illegally.

We also meet Jihyun, an escapee from North Korea who endured forced labor in her home country and forced marriage in China; Mbala, a former child soldier in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Nadia, a Yazidi sex slave held captive by the Islamic State; and Natalie, a victim of sexual exploitation in the U.S.

While victims’ stories span regions and industries, all are tragic. So what can we do to confront this terrible epidemic?

First, we need to increase the chances that criminals are brought to justice. Slavery is not legal in any nation on Earth. Yet perpetrators are rarely prosecuted, let alone convicted. Consequently, some experts propose strategic litigation, which aims to bring about broader systemic change in a legal system through an individual case. More than simply winning a case, strategic litigation seeks to raise awareness about an issue and encourage public debate with the ultimate goal of setting a new precedent. The technique has made a difference in global social justice cases ranging from , to in Kenya, to for African Americans in the U.S.

Second, more governments should implement laws mandating that businesses publicly assess their supply chains. These laws could build on existing models, such as the United Kingdom’s Modern Slavery Act of 2015, which requires businesses with annual revenues of more than £36 million to publish yearly statements describing the steps they’ve taken to eliminate slavery from their supply chains.

To further strengthen such legislation, an independent third party could be appointed to conduct audits of companies’ supply chains to ensure that their annual statements are accurate. To incentivize businesses to comply, the legislation should impose monetary and criminal penalties on companies that fail to participate in reporting.

Businesses should also take the lead in instituting ethical sourcing and labor recruitment requirements. Some already have. Target, for example, aims to eliminate forced labor by 2020 by better monitoring its supply chain and using technology to collect real-time data from workers across the supply chain. Likewise, upon discovering that some workers involved in their transshipment (the process of shipping items to an intermediate location before they go to their final destination) systems were slaves, Mars and Nestle committed to eliminating transshipping from their supply chainsaltogether last year.

Together, governments, businesses, and NGOs need to keep fighting modern slavery and raising awareness about its pervasiveness. The more successful they are, the greater chance its victims around the world will be set free.

Becky Allen is a research associate with the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations. Gayle Tzemach Lemmon is an adjunct fellow with the Women and Foreign Policy program at the Council on Foreign Relations.

从伊拉克和叙利亚的战场,到东欧的妓院,全球估计还有4,030万人仍然在遭受奴役。现代奴隶制度横跨各大洲,棉花、咖啡、采矿等主要产业都能见到它的身影。尽管建立在贫民和脆弱人群之上,但这一行业每年为奴隶贩子带来了1,500亿美元的惊人收入——平均每位受害者贡献了3,722美元。

政府、非政府组织和跨国企业已经展开合作,帮助终结现代奴隶制度。不过想要结束这场灾难,还有更多需要去做——既需要加强执法力度,也要让商业行为更加透明。

美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)发布的最新信息要览深入挖掘了令人发指的现代奴隶世界。通过受害者的证词,配上地图、照片和演示工具,要览向读者揭示了现代奴隶贸易的现实,以及奴隶制度绵延至21世纪的因素。

由贫困、冲突、迁徙和全球人口激增所推动的现代奴隶制度,伤害形式包括多种,例如性剥削、抵债劳动、家庭奴役或逼婚。尽管也涉及男性,但遭到拐卖的受害者中有四分之三都是妇女和女孩。每四个受害者中,就有一个是儿童。尽管奴隶贸易并不涉及人种或种族歧视,但大部分受害者来自贫困社区,因为可行的挣钱途径不多,他们易于相信人贩子虚假和危险的承诺,去追逐更美好的未来。

外交关系委员会的要览中介绍的一位获救者名叫萨那本,之前是泰国渔船上的工人。渔业的招聘人员常常向移居者做出工作赚钱的虚假承诺,之后他们则会被送去从事那些危险的工作,还会遭到虐待。萨那本表示,船上的工人被剥夺了自由,也无法获得足够的睡眠。因为工作环境危险,许多人掉入海中,然而没有人去追踪他们的死讯,因为他们是非法劳工。

我们还见到了智贤,她是一个脱北者,在祖国被强迫劳动,在中国又被逼婚,另外还有刚果民主共和国的娃娃兵姆巴拉;被伊斯兰国俘虏成为性奴的雅兹迪人纳迪亚;以及美国性剥削的受害者娜塔莉。

这些受害者的故事涉及多个地区和行业,都很悲惨。我们要怎么做才能遏制这种可怕制度的盛行呢?

首先,我们需要提高罪犯得到正法的概率。在地球上任何一个国家,奴隶制都是非法的。然而违法者极少被起诉,更不用说定罪。因此,一些专家推荐策略性的起诉,即通过个案来推动法律系统的大范围改变。策略性起诉并不只是要赢得官司,而是要引发公众对问题的关注,鼓励公开辩论,最终目的是建立一个新的判决先例。这种方式在国际上涉及社会公正的案例中取得了很好的效果,例如有关肯尼亚,以及在美国的非裔美国人的情况。

其次,更多政府应该立法,委托企业公开评估自身的供应链。这些法律可以建立在现有的模板之上,例如英国2015年的《现代奴隶法案》(Modern Slavery Act),它要求年收入超过3,600万英镑的企业每年发布报表,阐述他们采取了什么措施来消灭供应链上可能存在的奴隶制度。

要进一步加强立法工作,政府还可以聘请独立的第三方机构对企业的供应链进行审计,确保他们的年度报表准确无误。为了让企业遵守规定,法律还应当对那些未能发布报表的企业施以罚款或刑事处罚。

企业也应当带头出台有关道德采购和劳动招聘的要求。有些公司已经着手在做了。例如,塔吉特(Target)就计划通过加强对供应链的监督,运用技术收集供应链上工人的实时数据,在2020年以前根除强迫劳动的现象。类似的,因为发现涉及转运(在货物抵达最终目的地之前运到一个中间地)系统的员工是奴隶,玛氏(Mars)和雀巢(Nestle)去年决定完全取消供应链的转运机制。

政府、企业和非政府组织需要联合起来遏制现代奴隶制度,并对它的普遍性提高警惕。他们做得越成功,世界各地的受害者就有越大的可能重获自由。(财富中文网)

作者贝基·艾伦是美国外交关系委员会女性与国外政策项目的助理研究员。盖尔·泽马赫·莱蒙是美国外交关系委员会女性与国外政策项目的客座研究员。

译者:严匡正

阅读全文

相关阅读:

  1. 5步摆脱数码奴役
  2. 利比亚眼下的奴隶交易
返回顶部
#jsonld#