In history, the transatlantic slave trade was outlawed in 1807, and slavery has ever since been prohibited internationally by Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other United Nations decisions. The declaration was the base in progressive resistance against slavery globally. It also laid foundation for joint advocacy against racism.
What is called the Anti-Slavery Day is a global educative commemoration marked every year on 18 October to raise awareness on human trafficking and all forms of modern slavery and encourage the governments, local authorities, companies, charities and individuals to do what they can to address these problems. This is because slavery is not a mere historical issue; it has actually found its way into the very waft and weft of our societies.
However, slavery still walks with shoulders high in its multiple faces. While people are rarely put in chains in caravans or whipped in big sugar cane plantations, or sold in broad daylight as it was in Bagamoyo and Zanzibar slave markets, on a global scale many people are in enslaving entanglements in their home countries and abroad, being forced into dangerous things they would not freely choose to do.
Statistics produced this year 2022 by International Labour Organization (ILO) in collaboration with Walk Free, and International Organisation for Migration (IOM) inform us that there are still estimated 50 million people across the world in slavery today, forced to work for little or no pay, trafficked with deceptive promises of jobs, relationships, and greener pastures only to find themselves trapped in lions’ dens, forced to sell their bodies for sex, working as drugs transporter bags, having their body organs ‘stolen’ and sold, debt bondages, and many other debasing and inhuman activities.
A living example is Sir Mo Farah an Olympic star who was illegally trafficked from Somalia to UK and forced to work as a domestic servant. With these remnants of slaving mentality still existing in the world it is time we cast a critical eye on the subject, and think of making improvements in our local situations based on how the issue unfolds locally.
Tanzanian Situation
Reflecting on the situation in Tanzania, both slavery aftermaths and modern slavery still haunt our society. Modern forms of slavery can be witnessed in factories, farms, small businesses and side hustles, due to inexistence of effective labour protection policies and regulations. How can the government effectively protect people whose work agreements are not written at all, in jobs that have no clear terms and conditions, like in factories and farms with obvious health, safety and security risks?
What about domestic workers/house-helps (house girls and house boys) and babysitters in the cities, some of whom are minors who should ideally be in school or under parental care? There are regions in Tanzania today that are famous for supplying house girls for the cities. There are also incidences whereby young girls have been transported from neighbouring countries like Malawi and Zambia for the same.
A research published by International Women’s Media Foundation in 2017 established that “about 1 million children in Tanzania, most of them girls, are illegally being made to work as domestic servants.” In the study report ‘Child Labour and the Youth Decent Work Deficit in Tanzania’ published by International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2018, it was found that 4.2 million aged 5 to 17 were involved in child labour.
Need for intervention
Coming from poor backgrounds these people, both children and adults, are made to stoop even lower for little favours, just because of their needy nature. Tanzania needs to reach a point whereby every productive engagement that earns one a living is monitored and moderated by the government, and no one is illegally made to work. This will also give these people a voice and legal protection in event of maltreatment, violence, and abuses.
Furthermore, domestic workers are taken to the cities to work for very low payments, without contracts, without dignity, and at high risk of gender based abuse like rape by their male bosses, assaults by their bosses, denial of nutritious food and access to health services, given the fact that most of them are female.
This is a locally wired kind of human trafficking the government has not yet laid hands on successfully. The historical bigger picture of slavery is that of foreign nationals with guns in our country, but deep within our communities, slavery in its modern forms is rampant and has mature roots.
There are also other areas where there is still unorganised remuneration of our people working in the mining industry, in farms and in factories. In the West, and many other developed economies people are paid per hour, regardless of the type of job. But when western companies come to Tanzania they don’t pay the factory and farm workers per hour, they underpay for the productive hard work invested and make tons of profit in return. We need national labour and workplace policies that favour the emancipation of working citizens (and residents) from modern slavery.
This day also gives us a good chance to educate young people who are zealous to go and work abroad. Sometimes things are not as good as they seem. It is good to be sure of everything before embarking on journeys abroad so that one does not end up trapped in the hands of traffickers, enslaving work or drug chains.
– Shimbo Pastory and Johnson Mwamasangula
Shimbo Pastory and Johnson Mwamasangula are Tanzanian social development analysts. Email: docshimbo@gmail.com, WhatsApp: +447459732915.
