to wonder why the people I know who are most enraged about past slavery are perfectly happy to benefit from modern slavery?

[mosquitofeast]

For background, I work on a project reintroducing freed child slaves into education.

There are thousands of slaves in UK, many of them children. The worst industry by far is the cannabis growing industry, and no, I don't think legalising it will help. How could legally grown cannabis compete in price with cannabis grown by unpaid slaves? Don't buy cannabis. You are supporting child slavery, possibly within a few miles of where you are sitting right now.

The sex worker industry relies totally on trafficked woman and children, and slavery, and yet its ok to go on an BLM march in the morning, and a stag do using a company invested in people trafficking in the evening?

Nail bars and clothing factories, even some illegal UK ones. Don't buy counterfeits. Simples.

(And the Chinese Uighurs need a whole thread on their own.)

So much anger and outrage and blame about historic slavery, why can't that be funnelled into taking a stand against the slavery that thousands of people are experiencing in the UK today?

Separate issues. Of course people should be enraged about modern slavery, and I’m impressed by the work you do. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t also be aware of ‘past slavery’ - which isn’t really ‘past’ after all, bedside the repercussions of that slavery are still being played out today and directly impacting people’s lives.

For the exact same reason the same people are so dreadfully anxious about global warming spend the most time on planes. Wine drinkers guilt. If they pay mouth service, they can sleep more comfortable on their goose stuffed pillows at night.

I agree. Where is the outrage against current slavery?

I agree with you and think that people need much more education about modern slavery. Perhaps being aware of/angry about historic slavery is a reasonable place to start though, so it’s a case of broadening rather than re-channelling opposition. I’d be interested to know more about your project if you’re prepared to say more.

Loved the irony of Jen Reid posing in front of the statue raised in place of a slave trader and she's wearing Adidas

I agree with you OP. I live near to a city built on slave traders funds and feel we are being asked to constantly apologise. Yet many people even if not actually slaves work today in appalling conditions. Let's deal with that.

Totally agree with you. The amount of mid thirties fair trade purchasing climate change protesting people I know who think nothing of regularly shoving a couple of grams of coke up their nose every weekend is horrific. But, we don't buy it from a 13 year old kid, we buy it from our mate Bob so it's nothing to do with that county lines stuff

The historic slavery issue is because the slaves were black, and currently the message is "BLACK lives matter".

Other cases of slavery are different because, from Roman slaves through to modern slaves, the victims are not one particular race of people and therefore they don't fit into the BLACK lives matter debate, they are just a distraction to limit or deny the struggles BLACK people have faced and currently face.

Throwing modern slavery into the mix is an attempt to pollute the BLM message in the same way that claiming "white lives matter" or "all lives matter" is.

People don’t actually want to do anything that might affect them, I.e. stop buying cheaply made clothes. It’s much easier for woke citizens to blame people in the past and feel all virtuous.

I agree OP.

Too many people claim ignorance about modern slavery, whilst wearing a £2 T-Shirt 🙄

How do they think that was produced whilst paying people a living wage?

We can't change the past, but we can force companies like Primark to pay for the goods they ordered from Bangladesh and not leave their workers to starve.

We can stop buying from companies like BooHoo who run slave-like factories in Leicestershire & claim they didn't know.

Completely agree OP
There is no reason why we cannot acknowledge the trans Atlantic slave trade and the impact it had on black communities as well as combating modern day slavery. To me, it doesn’t seem balanced now. We seem hyperfocussed on the slavery that ended almost 200yrs ago but blind to the slavery occurring today under our noses.

Thank you. I don't consider it either/or, that we are horrified about historic slavery OR modern slavery. We should be horrified about both

I don’t buy fakes.

The only beauty stuff I do is my eyebrows and I do them myself.

I’ve never taken drugs other than the ones my doctor prescribes.

I’m disabled and I work full time, I have children who are having difficulties and my partner is shielding and I haven’t seen him since March.

I have no more left to give. I support and campaign on causes that I personally care about and have the knowledge to make a difference on.

How much are you doing for those with my medical issues or the disadvantaged in the community I live in?

People can’t do everything and they have to choose what causes to support.

I am horrified about both. I'm also horrified about the continued more or less theft of Africa's valuable resources, by the West and China.

It's pretty hard to live ethically in this world. We have legislated against modern slavery, but it still happens.

This is interesting op, thanks. I knew about clothing, prostitution etc, but had no idea about cannabis. I don’t know any of these people who are only concerned about historical slavery, but I agree modern slavery needs far more publicity in order to change behaviour.

I agree with you 100%

We can't change what has happened no matter how much we want to but we can change what is currently happening and what happens in the future.

Never clicked yanbu so fast.
So all of these hypocrites all “influencers” made a big fuss about BLM but they promote companies which use modern slavery! They don’t care, they don’t see that they are profiting from other people’s misery also.

Not just the UK. What about all the people who work in factories in China making electronics and bits of tat to be sold cheaply in more affluent countries, same for people who work in most clothing factories and fruit and veg growers, mostly in Spain, but in other countries too. All work in terrible conditions for terrible wages so we can eat and have nice things cheaply.

I feel terrible that I benefit from this but for those people to benefit there needs to be change on a mass scale. They need to be paid properly and the middle men and large businesses need to make a little less profit and people in general need to pay a little more for the things we buy.

People in 'the west' still need to buy things and the people in the factories and farms still need jobs and income but there needs to be a shift in the power balance and properly fairly traded goods needs to be the norm, not an often impossible to find niche.

Where would I buy a fair trade phone for example? If we all refuse to buy sweatshop manufactured clothing, the people who make them will have no income, so will be in an even worse position than they are now. And it's not just a matter of going to a more expensive clothes shop, because it's very likely that even high end high street is produced in similar conditions to the cheaper end. The people who make these things won't get paid any more or work in better conditions when making a blouse for Reiss than they will for Dorothy Perkins for example.

I have been thinking this for a few weeks. I hired a cleaner to do some cleaning at our house and I am really worried she is part of a modern slavery organisation. I have no idea how to even go about reporting it anonymously and cannot shake this horrible feeling in my stomach.

I would be interested to know which brands support modern slavery please?

If we all refuse to buy sweatshop manufactured clothing, the people who make them will have no income, so will be in an even worse position than they are now.

Not necessarily - many of the children would be enabled to go to school for instance.

Because modern slaves provide them with cheap goods and food...

redcarbluecar

Perhaps being aware of/angry about historic slavery is a reasonable place to start though

It would be a good place to start if people understood about all slavery and not just black slavery.

Hmm....I like that we're all using ethically-made phones to point fingers.

Yanbu, just shows how hypocritical the human race is. Modern slavery benefits lots of people, cheap clothes etc, so thry overlook it

Completely agree. It's rife on here. The threads about making weed legal kill me because people don't have a fucking clue what they are talking about.