Slave labor: a disgrace to humanity

The deadly collapse of Rana Plaza garment factory complex in Bangladesh on April 24, 2013 (Photo: AFP)

A dreadful, black day passed silently in Bangladesh last week with little to no remembrance, largely because the Covid-19 pandemic has put everything on the back burner.

Seven years ago, on April 24, 2013, Rana Plaza garment factory complex collapsed at Savar, an industrial suburb near capital Dhaka. One of the worst industrial disasters in history brutally killed more than 1,100 workers and injured thousands more.

We soon realized that the Rana Plaza collapse was an accident but an avoidable tragedy — the greed of the complex owner and factory management forced poor workers to return to work and die despite cracks in the building appearing a day before.

On that day I stood near the ill-fated building benumbed as frantic rescue attempts were made to pull survivors from the concrete rubble.

In the following weeks I was heartbroken to witness families and relatives crying after identifying dear ones among dozens of decomposed bodies.

I became speechless when partially and fully paralyzed workers and orphaned children of Rana Plaza workers narrated their plight.

As a human being, I felt ashamed and disgraced to witness this unacceptable tragedy, which I believe was a collective failure of humanity.

Bangladesh tea workers: A legacy of neglect and servitude

A worker at a tea estate in Srimangal in Bangladesh's Moulvibazar district. Despite a production boom, tea workers live a life of misery due to poor wages and denial of basic rights. (Photo: Stephan Uttom/UCA News)

It's been nearly three decades and counting since Sabuj Tanti started working as a laborer at Khadim Tea Estate in the Sylhet district of northeast Bangladesh.

"This is our ancestral profession and we have no vocational skills. That's why we have been stuck here for more than 150 years," he told UCA News.

Sabuj, 43, a lower-caste Hindu from Tanti community, is the fifth generation of tea workers from his family. Yet this father of four daughters wants all his children to get out of the tea estate. Three of his daughters, except the youngest of two-and-half years-old, go to school.

"I don't want my daughters to become tea workers like me. I want them to get an education and have a better life. I didn't have the opportunity to get an education, so I have been stuck in the tea estate forever," he said.

Sabuj sees no future in the tea industry under the current circumstances.

Forgotten and invisible: modern-day slaves

Indian sex workers look out from their brothel in the red light district of Kamathipura in Mumbai. Socially conservative India, Bangladesh and Pakistan do not permit legal prostitution but all have brothels spilling with sex workers. (Photo: AFP)

In today’s modern world overshadowed by extravagant globalization, materialism and consumerism, it is very common for people to forget about people who are less fortunate.

These people with relative fortune and comfort might get a jolt if asked what they think about slavery and slaves. In most cases, the answer is likely to be simple: slavery was abolished in the 19th century.

The British parliament passed its Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 and the US government made the 13th amendment to the constitution in 1865, marking the official abolition of slavery.

However, slavery didn’t end with its abolition 154 years ago. It has just changed forms and continues to plague millions of people in the world today.  

The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery on Dec. 2 passed almost unnoticed in much of the globe as if our world today has almost pulled itself out of the curse of slavery.
The reality is that about 40 million people are trapped in various forms of modern-day slavery and one in every four victims are children, according to the United Nations.