SP0021 – World Crisis “Forced Labor”

 

Forced Labor

By Juan Chamero, from Caece University at Buenos Aires, Argentine, July 12^th 2009

Subject: people, Crime Organized, economy, people rights, security,  geopolitics, homeless, immigrants,  people displaced, people diseases, invisible people, massacre,  people poverty,  society, social research

 Info Source 1: ILO, International Labor Organization; ILO Forced Labor Statistics; NYT Forced Labor in China, by Howard French; A forced labor Blog;

  

 

Workers rescued in May from a brick kiln in Linfen, in Shanxi Province, in northern China, in what has become an unfolding labor abuse scandal, By HOWARD W. FRENCH, Published: June 16, 2007

 

 ILO Forced Labor Report

As per 12^th May 2009

“….At least 12.3 million people around the world are trapped in forced labour. The ILO works to combat the practice and the conditions that give rise to it. Forced labour takes different forms, including debt bondage, trafficking and other forms of modern slavery. The victims are the most vulnerable – women and girls forced into prostitution, migrants trapped in debt bondage, and sweatshop or farm workers kept there by clearly illegal tactics and paid little or nothing. The ILO has worked since its inception to tackle forced labour and the conditions that give rise to it and has established a Special Action Programme on Forced Labour to intensify this effort. “

 Forced Labor Statistics

 Asia

Asia accounts for by far the biggest share of the world’s forced labourers. Many are migrants, either from elsewhere in Asia or their home country. The ILO currently views three issues with particular concern:

 • Persistence of bonded labour systems, particularly in South Asia, despite longstanding legislation to ban and punish such practices as well as efforts to identify, release and rehabilitate bonded labourers.

 • Widespread trafficking of children and adults, for both sexual and labour exploitation.

 • Continued use of forced labour by the State and official institutions, notably in Myanmar.

 Research has also shown the existence of forced labour in sectors that had escaped previous attention, including Thailand’s shrimp, fishing and seafood processing industries and shrimp production in Bangladesh.

 Some of the highest recruitment payments in the world are found in China, with research showing that workers can pay as much as 2.5 times their expected annual income in recruitment fees to obtain jobs in the U.S.

 Americas

Latin America accounts for the second largest number of forced labourers in the world after Asia, according to ILO estimates. Those most at risk are migrant workers in sweatshops, agriculture and domestic service. The main form of forced labour is through debt bondage, involving informal and unlicensed intermediaries who pay advances to entice workers and then reap profits through inflated charges.

 Forced labour in Latin America is closely linked to patterns of inequality and discrimination, especially against indigenous peoples. As a result, action to combat forced labour must be part of a broad framework of measures and programs aimed at reducing poverty by fighting discrimination and promoting the rights of indigenous peoples as well as helping poorest workers in urban areas.

In Argentina, there has been a crackdown against garment workshops following evidence that Bolivian men and their families were being trafficked for employment in the sector. Coercive practices include removal of identity documents, locking workers in factories and compelling them to work for up to 17 hours a day. After a factory fire killed several Bolivians in March 2006, a government inspection program led to the closure of more than half of the workshops visited. The drive included the establishment of a telephone hotline “Slave Labour Kills” in April 2006.

Elsewhere in Latin America, abusive practices include compulsory overtime, with allegations that in Guatemala, for example, workers were threatened with dismissal for refusing to work shifts of up to 24 hours.

 

 Info source 2: BBC of London, In Pictures: Forced Labor and Trafficking; David Kilgour Website a director of the Washington-based Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD).

Some not so awesome Forced Labor Images

 

From Russia: These are orphans. Natasha is the last one in the row, hiding from everybody. She was taken to the foster home by police who found her at a train station. Natasha didn’t know her surname or her age. Her mother is said to have sold her to people who ran a “beggar business”. “If I didn’t bring any money, they would beat me and send me back to work next morning,” she told people at the home. Natasha later disappeared from the orphanage and has not been seen since. Her mother has been located – she denies selling her daughter, saying she “rented her so she could earn some money for textbooks”.

 

  

Butterflies made by Falun Gong practitioners detained in Heizuizi Women’s Labor Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province. The above pictures are some products and children’s jewelry made by Falun Gong practitioners under duress in the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province. In addition to persecuting practitioners using brutal torture, murder, and sexual abuse, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) also uses forced labor and organ harvesting to make huge profits. Falun Gong practitioners are illegally arrested and sent to prisons, labor camps, and brainwashing centers just for remaining steadfast in their belief in Falun Dafa and the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. While they are subjected to physical mistreatment, they also have to do hard labor for over 10 hours a day in very poor working conditions to make products. These products are exported to the United States, Japan, Australia, Europe, and have brought in a huge amount of foreign currency for the CCP. The economic exploitation of practitioners is an important part of the persecution of Falun Dafa by the CCP.

 

 Comments: These two pills show us the remaining of an almost chronic social disease: slavery. Take into account that ILO statistics talk of about 13 millions of people suffering the cruelest forms of forced labor. However this is only the visible part of the people exploitation iceberg: people who are enforced to work more than 16 hours a day six days a week and living like animals. People working in Latin American “maquilas” and sweatshops working from 11 hours a day up whole weeks all over the world should be accounted for hundreds of millions. 

Tags: ILO, International Labor Organization, forced labor, forced labour, debt bondage, trafficking, modern slavery, slavery, sweatshops, sweatshop, Howard French, forced labor in China, garment workshops, slave labor kills, Myanmar slavery, Thailand shrimp, Bangladesh slavery, migrant workers, indigenous people slavery, Argentina garment shops, Argentina garment factories, bolivian urban slavery, slave labor kills, slave labour kills, compulsory overtime, continuous shifts, Davod Kilgour, beggar business, russian beggar business, Falun Gong, Falun Gong slavery, Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, Masanjia, Shenyang City, organ harvesting, Chinese organ harvesting,

SP0019 – World Crisis “Youth Formation”

 

 At the edge of the abyss

By Juan Chamero, from Caece University at Buenos Aires, Argentine, May 16th 2009

 Subject: Youth Formation, Crime, Terrorism

Source Info: Scouts Train to Fight Terrorists, and More, By JENNIFER STEINHAUER, NYT Published: May 13, 2009

  

Source: NYT: Explorers ready to enter a building taken by terrorists, in an exercise.

IMPERIAL, Calif. — Ten minutes into arrant mayhem in this town near the Mexican border, and the gunman, a disgruntled Iraq war veteran, has already taken out two people, one slumped in his desk, the other covered in blood on the floor.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

One participant, Felix Arce, 16, said he liked “the discipline of the program,” which was something he said his life was lacking. “I want to be a lawyer, and this teaches you about how crimes are committed,” he said.

Cathy Noriego, also 16, said she was attracted by the guns. The group uses compressed-air guns — known as airsoft guns, which fire tiny plastic pellets — in the training exercises, and sometimes they shoot real guns on a closed range.

“I like shooting them,” Cathy said. “I like the sound they make. It gets me excited.”

If there are critics of the content or purpose of the law enforcement training, they have not made themselves known to the Explorers’ national organization in Irving, Tex., or to the volunteers here on the ground, national officials and local leaders said. That said, the Explorers have faced problems over the years. There have been numerous cases over the last three decades in which police officers supervising Explorers have been charged, in civil and criminal cases, with sexually abusing them.

Several years ago, two University of Nebraska criminal justice professors published a study that found at least a dozen cases of sexual abuse involving police officers over the last decade. Adult Explorer leaders are now required to take an online training program on sexual misconduct.

Many law enforcement officials, particularly those who work for the rapidly growing Border Patrol, part of the Homeland Security Department, have helped shape the program’s focus and see it as preparing the Explorers as potential employees. The Explorer posts are attached to various agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local police and fire departments, that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops.

“Our end goal is to create more agents,” said April McKee, a senior Border Patrol agent and mentor at the session here.

Membership in the Explorers has been overseen since 1998 by an affiliate of the Boy Scouts called Learning for Life, which offers 12 career-related programs, including those focused on aviation, medicine and the sciences.

But the more than 2,000 law enforcement posts across the country are the Explorers’ most popular, accounting for 35,000 of the group’s 145,000 members, said John Anthony, national director of Learning for Life. Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, many posts have taken on an emphasis of fighting terrorism and other less conventional threats.

“Before it was more about the basics,” said Johnny Longoria, a Border Patrol agent here. “But now our emphasis is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling.”

The law enforcement posts are restricted to those ages 14 to 21 who have a C average, but there seems to be some wiggle room. “I will take them at 13 and a half,” Deputy Lowenthal said. “I would rather take a kid than possibly lose a kid.”

The law enforcement programs are highly decentralized, and each post is run in a way that reflects the culture of its sponsoring agency and region. Most have weekly meetings in which the children work on their law-enforcement techniques in preparing for competitions. Weekends are often spent on service projects.

Just as there are soccer moms, there are Explorers dads, who attend the competitions, man the hamburger grill and donate their land for the simulated marijuana field raids. In their training, the would-be law-enforcement officers do not mess around, as revealed at a recent competition on the state fairgrounds here, where a Ferris wheel sat next to the police cars set up for a felony investigation.

Their hearts pounding, Explorers moved down alleys where there were hidden paper targets of people pointing guns, and made split-second decisions about when to shoot. In rescuing hostages from a bus taken over by terrorists, a baby-faced young girl screamed, “Separate your feet!” as she moved to handcuff her suspect.

In a competition in Arizona that he did not oversee, Deputy Lowenthal said, one role-player wore traditional Arab dress. “If we’re looking at 9/11 and what a Middle Eastern terrorist would be like,” he said, “then maybe your role-player would look like that. I don’t know, would you call that politically incorrect?”

Authenticity seems to be the goal. Imperial County, in Southern California, is the poorest in the state, and the local economy revolves largely around the criminal justice system. In addition to the sheriff and local police departments, there are two state prisons and a large Border Patrol and immigration enforcement presence.

“My uncle was a sheriff’s deputy,” said Alexandra Sanchez, 17, who joined the Explorers when she was 13. Alexandra’s police uniform was baggy on her lithe frame, her airsoft gun slung carefully to the side. She wants to be a coroner.

“I like the idea of having law enforcement work with medicine,” she said. “This is a great program for me.”

And then she was off to another bus hijacking.

 

Comment: Here we have a sample showing us that certain scenarios and circumstances may break the barrier that keeps us off humanity.  Did you remember the Karate Kid Series?. Two human fighting archetypes were put face to face: the “normal boy” versus the “fascist” super boy and as expected the first won.

Who write these lines is a martial arts expert, a Zen master and a Human Excellence trainer. I have trained many people to excel since soldiers and athletes to executives and people with terminal diseases. In any circumstances we should behave as humans having in mind that the worst enemy is our ego. The human history tells us that concerning extreme situations “saints” always behave as best fighters than wicked and show off people.  I am also admirer of the Scout movement that always from its beginning and along times, and all over the world differentiate deeply from “Hitler youths” and the fascist Mussolini’s “Balilla”, in its principles and even in its compassionate spirit.

The World Crisis may drive us to face ruptures of this kind at exponentially mode. As long as ruptures induce us to imagine new ways of living and survival they could be considered evolutionary positive but negative if they ignite our most primitive instincts.

And lastly concerning Robert Baden Powell, the Boy Scout Movement creator, was a pioneer of the World Peace as a masculine version of the Mother Therese of Calcuta

Its Last Message to Scouts:

Dear Scouts,

If you have ever seen the play Peter Pan you will remember how the pirate chief was always making his dying speech because he was afraid that possibly when the time came for him to die he might not have time to get it off his chest. It is much the same with me, and so, although I am not at this moment dying, I shall be doing so one of these days and I want to send you a parting word of good-bye.

Remember, it is the last you will ever hear from me, so think it over.

I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this jolly world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor merely from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence. One step towards happiness is to make yourself healthy and strong while you are a boy, so that you can be useful and so can enjoy life when you are a man.

Nature study will show you how full of beautiful and wonderful things God has made the world for you to enjoy. Be contented with what you have got and make the best of it. Look on the bright side of things instead of the gloomy one.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best. “Be Prepared” in this way, to live happy and to die happy– stick to your Scout promise always– even after you have ceased to be a boy– and God help you to do it.

Your Friend
Baden-Powell

Categories: people, youth, crime prevention, immigration,

 

Tags: Robert Baden Powell, mother Therese of Calcutta, youth, youth training, crime prevention, scouts training, terrorist fighting, terrorism fighting, Jennifer Steinhauer, Imperial County, Mexican border, Boy Scouts of America, explorers program, illegal immigration, border violence, true blooded, A J Lowenthal, marijuana fields, active shooters, border patrol, airsoft guns, plastic pellets, sexual misconduct, homeland security, homeland security department, April McKeee, learning for life, rescuing hostages, middle eastern terrorist, bus hijacking, karate kid, normal boy, fascist super boy, Zen master, human excellence, Hitler youths, Mussolini’s Balilla, Balilla, primitive instincts, Peter Pan, Last message to scouts

SP0005 – World Crisis “People”

 

SP0005

Subject: people, Homeless: its segregation and prosecution

Attacks on the Homeless Rise, With Youths Mostly to Blame, By AMY GREEN, Published: February 15, 2008, NYT

 

……..Nationwide, violence against the homeless is soaring, and overwhelmingly the attackers are teenagers and young adults. In Florida the problem is so severe that the National Coalition for the Homeless is setting up speakers bureaus to address a culture that sees attacking the homeless as a sport. It is the first time the organization has singled out a particular state.

 

Comments: It’s not only a problem of national and “natives” versus immigrants and in general people “inside the system” against people “outside the system” but a problem of the arousal of our lowest and perverse instincts. As in socioeconomic scenarios the dialectic is not the clash of rich versus poor but the frustration discharges of a social group against its circumstantially diminished neighbor at large the perverse escapism need of others being humiliated.

Warren Messner

Source:

Tags: Amy Green, homeless attacks, immigrants, segregation, racism, homeless prosecution, National Coalition for the Homeless, Warren Messner, youngsters violence, youths violence,

NYT Archives; Warren Messner, 18, has an armful of tattoos early in his 22-year prison term for the beating death of a homeless man.