http://therealsingapore.com/content/modern-day-slavery-singapore
MODERN-DAY SLAVERY IN SINGAPORE
Post date:
11 Mar 2015 - 1:07pm
We read the papers, we watch the news, we hear things in public, we discuss, every day. These issues are usually along the same lines, issues regarding politics, epidemics, war. Maybe more specifically, recently, the Air Asia crash, the fast-spreading Ebola disease, the Charlie Hebdo shootings in Paris. Would you say such issues are predictable in a sense? Is this really all that accounts for as news?
About two weeks ago, I attended a talk on human trafficking and modern-day slavery by a group called EmancipAsia. This is not a topic that is widely covered, I feel. The talk covered various cases of human trafficking all around the world, many of which did not surprise me because I had heard of such cases before. For example, cases of human trafficking in Indonesia, India and Cambodia. As stereotypical as it may sound, it’s true, we are more aware of such problems in these countries because we have been exposed to them.
In this day and age, there are an estimated 27 million people living in slavery, 2.5 million people becomes slaves every year, 6,800 persons per day, 283 persons per hour, 5 persons every minute and 1 person every 12 seconds.
Take a moment, count down 12 seconds. 12, 11, 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Quite horrifying, isn't it?
More disturbing though, is that a percentage of human trafficking actually happens in our own home country, Singapore. This is probably what shocked me the most. Why? I was completely unaware of its extent.
The fact of the matter is, human trafficking does happen in Singapore. Many cases go unreported every year. For example, it is estimated that only 52 out of a couple of hundred cases were reported in 2012. That means no one will ever know who the large majority of victims are and they will probably live out their lives stuck in this living hell, or worse, face an untimely death.
In Singapore, human trafficking revolves mostly around female sex workers and male foreign workers. For now, I would like to focus on women and young girls, who are lured from their home countries with promises of a better life. Once here, they are alone, isolated and frightened, and threatened into believing that they are here illegally and that they can never return home.
*Read the rest of the article at http://inconvenientquestions.sg/Archive/2015/3/modern-day-slavery-in-sin...
