On January 19th, 2011, the Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall in New York City will hold the world premiere of Not My Life -- a feature-length documentary film about modern-day slavery and global human trafficking, about horrifying practices that affect millions of children, women and men in every part of the world -- a shameful but neglected reality in our "global village".
Globalization has brought us many advantages indeed, but its related deregulation processes have also facilitated some inhuman practices. Bonded labor, debt-related slavery, commercial sexual exploitation and other forms of forced labor and related trafficking have become a global industry -- very conservatively estimated at over $32 billion by the International Labor Organization (ILO) in 2005 and even higher numbers in more recent reports by other organizations, the United States' State Department, etc.
All varieties of forced labor and human trafficking are treated as criminal practices, prohibited in international law and most national legislation. It is covered by international treaties and covenants, including three United Nations Protocols and three ILO Conventions, which are unique in the sense that they include elements of criminal law and its enforcement. The overwhelming majority of governments have ratified these instruments and developed and/or improved related national laws and technical cooperation programs. Yet, the illegal and hidden nature of different forms of forced labor and trafficking makes it very difficult to crack down such practices. Very few victims are rescued on a global basis.
There are indeed many committed institutions and compassionate individuals advocating an end to modern slavery, and many of them are working with governments and their law enforcement agencies. But these efforts need to be strengthened with more financial resources and also proactive media to mobilize public opinion, particularly consumer awareness, as well as private business initiatives, etc. Businesses today cannot afford to run risks of association with any form of child labor and forced labor and related human trafficking in their own business operations and their supply chains, no matter how difficult it may be for them to monitor and control these complex chains.
Particularly in countries with well developed legislation and strong human rights advocacy groups, any company facing allegations of profiting from forced labor exploitation will not only find their reputation severely damaged, but may also face costly lawsuits and criminal prosecution. The same is generally true for at least some of the "worst forms of child labor" defined under ILO Convention 182 and related UN Protocols. These issues have become a significant risk management concern for companies. But few of them are engaged proactively in multistakeholder efforts to crack down on forced labor, child labor and human trafficking. It would indeed help them fence off their own risks if they would become more actively engaged.
Not My Life is a film that can make a difference in informing and mobilizing public opinion and multistakeholder initiatives. Although the topics addressed -- especially female sexual trafficking -- have been seen in television reports, there is a lack of feature length films that effectively depict the problem of modern slavery as a whole targeting a mass audience and, in addition, can provide, at little or no cost, edited versions of the film for educational and fundraising purposes and to help enhance cooperation.
Not My Life is the outcome of four years of planning and hard work by its director, writer and producer, Robert Bilheimer. It was filmed in North and South America, Europe, Southeast Asia, India, and Africa. I first met Robert in Washington, DC, in early 2007 when he was seeking support from United States agencies and international organizations to help him define the focus, scope, funding and outreach of his envisaged new film. As Director of ILO for the United States, I engaged frequently with Robert in his efforts and, in this process, we became close friends as well. Robert's compassionate worldview and artistic style had been evident in A Closer Walk, his highly acclaimed documentary about global HIV-AIDS. This character and style would inevitably lead him to produce a humanistic essay about slavery that, as he once put it, would
Yet, the nature of this complex theme required more than a humanistic approach. It dealt with crimes. It required an in-depth knowledge of the international and national instruments and loopholes, and the efforts of some UN agencies, NGOs and government agencies dealing with the scourge of modern slavery and related trafficking. Robert and I had long discussions about how a poetic humanistic perspective could in fact enhance what the UN agencies and NGOs, and many governments and some companies were trying to achieve.
provide a deeper understanding of the way the world is and our relationship to one another as human beings in a planetary society. ...The viewers around the world who see this film will ask themselves: what kind of society have we created that allows traffickers to profit and prey on -- of all things -- human lives? The lives of innocent children? The lives of young women and girls? The lives of men who have been robbed of their dignity and self-respect long before enslaving criminals appeared to take what little they had left?
Not My Life's premiere will be a celebration of all those individuals and organizations working to end slavery in our time. Many of those appearing in the film itself will attend the premiere, including guests from several countries, among them, prominent government figures, leaders from NGOs, United Nations agencies and private business, members of the arts and entertainment communities, including the film's narrator, Ashley Judd, and musical contributors Dave Brubeck, Derek Trucks, and Susan Tedeschi. Members of the international press corps will be in attendance to mark what the organizers anticipate will be a watershed event for one of the most complex and troubling human rights issues of our time. The premiere, which will be attended by approximately 1,000 people, will be followed by a limited theatrical run of Not My Life in select theatres in the United States, including New York, Chicago, and Los Angeles.
Mickey Goodman: Sex Trafficking in the United States: Children Across America are Unseen Victims
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gKX9TWRyfs&feature=related
The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.
(Old information--much worse now)
You CANNOT have successful Capitalism without Socialism. It would be impossible. I thought they were supposed to be good businessmen.
We are and have always been a country that has always combined capitalism and socialism.
I believe (and every American I have ever met-otherwise no roads, social security, VA etc) the statement below:
"Socialism is required for things that we absolutely must have, like health care, the common defense, police and firefighters, clean air and water, and so forth.
Free markets are wonderful for all the crap we can live without"
There's nothing wrong with that!!!
Capitalism can and always has existed beside Socialism. They complement each other.
They need to be balanced against each other to prevent injustices by either ideology. That is what our two party system is supposed to be about but the corruption of our system has thrown it out of balance. Go too far to the right, we get fascism. Go too far left we get communism.
We have gone too far to the right.
For those who think the poor are wanting to take from the rich.
http://www.lcurve.org/
The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.
Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.) --
The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high. --
At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high. --
The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line. --
From there it keeps going up...it goes up 30 miles on this (old) scale!
Does it make sense from looking at this graph that we have to cut social services and unemployment to balance our deficit?
We wouldn’t even have to increase taxes on the rich to put the country in the green.
Do to them what they want to do to us.
"Take the Rich Off Welfare", Zepezauer and Naiman
"If you cut 26 percent of the welfare now given to the rich you have instantly balanced the budget."
"If you cut out wealthfare, you could pay off the national debt in 11 years."
Unemployed, underemployed, and underpaid human beings are our most wasted asset.
There is no need to dig too deep to find slavery. The industrial economy runs on lite slavery, but we prefer not to see it as such, in order not to lose our sanity.
Full time work is very much like bonded labor for most, working under a mortgage is like debt-related slavery, brothels are commercial sex exploitation of the unfortunate. The military in most nation states runs on forced labor through various threats too keep them.
This went on form 1619 up until Slavery ended in 1865, two years after the Emancipation Proclamation. People often focus on the wealth planters who had large plantations down south. But Slavery was also bolstered a great deal by the regular joe Southerners. These were people who had little or no wealth themselves but one day dreamed of being a wealthy planter of sorts themselves.
For this lottery dream to go on , slavery and the dehumanization of Africans had to continue. Roll forward to 2011 and we see the same situation playing out for the same reasons. The only difference is that the slaves work in factories overseas in India and China and other emerging nations. And the today’s planters are CEO’s and the average Joe still supports slavery for the price of cheap goods or dreams of becoming a business owner made wealthy from 3rd world slavery.
The average joe is is not just southerners today but the entire nation of dreamweavers weaveing nightmares for others.