Episode 49 - Modern-Day Slave Trade by Human Rights Diplomats

Empire Files

News

4.9 • 784 Ratings

🗓️ 19 December 2017

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Human trafficking is a hidden industry that brings in $150 billion in illegal profits every year. In the United States, tens of thousands are trafficked annually—the biggest clients being major hotel chains and foreign diplomats. The Philippines is one of the largest labor exporters in the world. 6,000 Filipinos—mostly women—leave the country every single day to work, because of mass unemployment and poverty. Tricked by placement agencies, thousands end up living as virtual slaves. Damayan, a New York-based organization led by Filipina domestic workers, is fighting this underground crisis. Abby Martin speaks to several members of the organization about how this exodus of women has devastated a generation of families, and how they are fighting back. LISTEN TO PART II: http://bit.ly/2BgfGuo FOLLOW // http://twitter.com/empirefiles LIKE // http://facebook.com/theempirefiles

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to the Empire Files podcast. This is Abby Martin.
0:04.0	This is the audio version of each episode of the Empire Files hosted on Telesaur English.
0:09.0	You can watch every episode at the Empirefiles.tv.
0:15.0	The Philippines, among the many nations whose history is one of being colonized and subjugated by the world's empires,
0:22.0	today suffers the consequences of that legacy. Underdevelopment, high unemployment, and deepening poverty.
0:28.7	This has led to a phenomenon that dominates the lives of millions of Filipinos, the fact that over 10%
0:34.1	of the population, mostly women, must leave the country to seek work in order to send money back to their families.
0:40.3	6,000 people leave the Philippines as migrant workers every single day.
0:45.3	Imagine children, often too young to understand, watching their mother leave and knowing they will not see them again for a decade or more.
0:52.3	This is now a shared experience for
0:54.6	countless families on the island nation. Most go to work low-wage jobs in the United States, United
0:59.8	Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Japan. They send back over $20 billion a year into the Philippine economy.
1:06.3	Despite its dramatically smaller population, the Philippines ranks alongside India and China as the top
1:11.8	countries receiving such remittances. But when these people leave their homes, they enter into a dark,
1:17.3	cruel industry. Human trafficking is mostly absent in U.S. consciousness. Most don't think of trafficking
1:23.5	when it comes to jobs like nannies, maids at big hotel chains, and other domestic work,
1:28.3	but millions of migrant workers are trafficked into these jobs every year. It's defined as the
1:33.7	recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receipt of persons by improper means for an
1:39.3	improper purpose, including forced labor or sexual exploitation. This global black market ensnars 21 million people around the world,
1:47.0	making $150 billion a year in illegal profits for traffickers.
1:52.0	According to the recent report, the human trafficking of domestic workers in the United States,
1:56.0	there are currently 2 million migrant domestic workers that live in the U.S.,
	...

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