Such semantic niceties may explain the often ambiguous attitudes of religion towards slavery. The early Christian Church did not oppose slavery, probably because slavery was a cultural norm, and opposition to it would have been difficult. Indeed the New Testament admonishes slaves to obey their masters, although urging kindness towards slaves. Such biblical attitudes may have influenced the Dutch Reformed Church in its support for the apartheid system in South Africa, where slavery thrived.
Islam allowed slavery in certain circumstances, particularly for non-Muslims or of those captured in war. [CHECK AND VERIFY]. Christianity, Islam & Judaism moderated the conditions of slavery, but they did not condemn it as an institution.
Slavery was often part of the spoils of war, but was sometimes the very reason for battle in the first instance. The Muslim Corsairs of North Africa and the pagan Vikings of Scandinavia pillaged coastal towns for slaves, including Irish towns. An infamous Moorish pirate raid off the south coast of Ireland netted hundreds of slaves who never saw Ireland again. These slaves were sold at market to the highest bidder.
This indicates a trend that appears in contemporary times, it was acceptable to enslave those who were not of one’s own race or religion.
Thus Romans enslaved the Gauls, the Arabs and Europeans enslaved black Africans, the Vikings enslaved the Celts, the Moors enslaved Europeans & Asians, African tribes enslaved other African tribes and so on. The nature of the human condition appears to make it much easier to accept the degradation of those who do not look or believe the same as “we” do. It is much more difficult to enslave someone from one’s own community.
This cycle is repeated in the modern incarnation of sexual slavery. It is the “foreigner” who is trafficked. In the UK, how many UK citizens are trafficked into forced prostitution? How many Irish citizens are trafficked in Ireland?
Trafficked human beings in the sex industry are generally from another country, another race, another religion – this “otherness” helps to rationalise the debasement into which they are forced.
So what do we do about this problem?
Organised crime has entered the human enslavement business with a vengeance, partly because of the huge profits, but also partly because the custodial penalties for these crimes are much less than for, say, drug crime. Clearly the Justice system will have to catch up with the criminals.
The demand for enslaved women is clearly at a level that staggering sums of money can be earned by the criminals. It seems logical to look at efforts to limit that demand, and thus cut the profits.
Some commentators have lead calls to criminalise the users, the “punters”, in order to reduce the demand. Currently only prostitutes and brothel owners are criminalised, the users of the industry are not. Some commentators have called for the legalisation and licensing of prostitution, with draconian sentences for those facilitating the non-licensed sex industry. Whilst morally dubious to put it mildly, at least this would offer a space where women in the sex industry could operate with some level of official scrutiny and would be less likely to be coerced.
The practice of coercing women into being sex workers breaks every human rights code in existence. That this practice has accelerated up to 800,000 people per year is a bitter indictment of human society’s failure to tackle serious ethical, social & health issues. And this is simply because the will to tackle the problem is not there. We must generate that will to confront this issue, we must shine the light of truth on the extent of the problem and we must demand that action be taken.
Perhaps as a start the onus on establishing the status of any sex worker should be put on the user of the service – those persons having paid sex with a person later found to be enslaved could face a mandatory prison sentence. Indeed given the non-EU national profile of a typical enslaved sex industry worker, any such workers should be presumed as being forced against their will by any punter.
Given the current situation in Ireland, where over 10% of the population is non-national, it is somewhat ironic that the patron saint of Ireland was a foreign slave. Patrick was trafficked to Ireland and endured many harsh times before embarking on his mission of proselytising Christianity to the Irish. How many new Patrick’s are in Ireland today? Perhaps there are some amongst you here today that could assist the Irish native community to face up to what is happening behind closed curtains. I warmly encourage you to do so.
Sheikh Dr. Shaheed Satardien
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