Modern Slavery
"The Pygmies' world...was a world where everything had its place and one thing did not destroy or seek to replace another."
MODERN SLAVERY
As far as most of us are concerned, slavery is a thing of the past—a terrible scar in our history that we have only read about in textbooks or seen in "based on a true story" movies that we have been lucky enough to never personally witness.
But this assumption that slavery is dead is dead wrong—slavery is very much alive.
BULLYING IN THE THIRD WORLD
If the idea of slavery still seems surreal, we can all understand the concept of bullying. Bullies seek to intimidate, exploit, harm, and humiliate those they perceive as vulnerable in order to gain dominance. Whether you were personally bullied in school as a child or in the workplace as an adult, or know of someone else who has fallen victim to this unfair treatment, bullying can have a lasting traumatic impact on an individual. No matter the setting, age, gender, class, sexuality, or ethnicity of the targeted person or group of people, we can all agree that bullying is wrong and should never be tolerated.
Slavery can be seen as bullying taken to the extreme. In the First World, we have better access to resources and individuals who can intervene in these situations when they arise, but in the Third World, there is often no one to stand up for the rights of the bullied, leaving them no choice but to suffer in silence.
SLAVERY IN THE CONGO
Although slavery was officially abolished long ago, modern-day slavery persists around the world in numerous forms of human rights violations, including human trafficking and forced labor. Despite their illegal nature, these atrocities are carried out under the radar of the government and authorities, or even worse, a blind eye is turned towards their existence, offering no protection for victims.
Ongoing conflict, extreme poverty, and corruption create a breeding ground for modern slavery, and indigenous groups discriminated against on the basis of different cultural norms are particularly vulnerable to marginalisation by the ruling class.
This scenario exists in the Republic of Congo today. Here, community workers, government, and industry—the Bantu—forcibly seek to change traditional Pygmy culture in the interest of capitalist development, which includes deforestation. These selfish interests have led to the displacement of the Pygmies from the forest and into a foreign society, where they endure forced labor at the hands of Bantu landowners in a state of semi-slavery. The Pygmies have no respect or rights in the eyes of the Bantu.