Posted by Gordon Cheyne
Tony and Robyn Stokes of Box Hill Central Rotary Club gave an interesting dissertation on modern slavery, and the activities of The Rotary Action Group Against Slavery.
 
 
 
 
Tony started by describing different forms of slavery, as some form of forced labour, unpaid work with debt that the worker is unable to escape from, perhaps without a full understanding of the debt and its implications, often with the debt being passed to the next generation.  He described North Korea with 1 in 12 workers in state imposed forced labour, Uzbekistan cotton pickers, “domestic servants” in embassies, in the electronic and clothing industries.  He bracketed forced marriages with workers in the sex industry, and described how orphanages were tied into these. 
 
 
He described 40.3 million people in some form of bondage, three quarters of them female, and including 10 million childeren. Half of these are in SE Asia, with up to 15,000 in Australia.
 
Robyn Stokes went on to describe some RAGAS Programs to raise awareness of slavery, and how kidnapping and rape were used to control the slaves. A program “Creating better futures” for children in the Karen villages of Myanmar is introducing training to protect children.
The Rotary Action Group Against Slavery supports the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal to eradicate forced labour,  modern slavery, human trafficking and child labour by 2030. 
 
More about RAGAS at https://ragas.online 
 
Watch “A21 Can You See Me - Sex Trafficking”on Vimeo:  https://vimeo.com/228009048?ref=em-share 
 
And for the latest End Slavery Newsletter (there is a subscribe button at the end of the newsletter)  https://mailchi.mp/4570803a684c/issue-14-end-slavery-newsletter-from-ragas-victoria-australia?e=[UNIQID]