Monday 26 March 2007

THE MOVEMENT IN BRISTOL TO ABOLISH SLAVE TRADE

"The absence of conflict is not evidence of the presence of peace." The report of Marvin Rees from Bristol

FEMINIZATION OF WORKING POVERTY

More women then ever before are in work, but a persistent gap in status, job security, wages and education between women and men is contributing to the "feminization of working poverty", according to a new report by the International Labour Office (ILO): Global Employment Trends for Women Brief - 2007

THE REPORT OF THE WORLD COMMISSION

There is an urgent need to rethink current institutions of global economic governance, whose rules and policies it says are largely shaped by powerful countries and powerful players. The unfairness of key rules of trade and finance reflect a serious "democratic deficit" at the heart of the system. The failure of policies, it argues, is due to the fact that market-opening measures and financial and economic considerations have consistently predominated over social ones, including measures compatible with the prerogatives of international human rights law and the principles of international solidarity. Says the Report of the World Commission on the Social dimension of Globalization

FORCED LABOUR: DECEPTION OR FALSE PROMISES ABOUT TYPES AND TERMS OF WORK

The International Labour Organization - ILO- defines deception or false promises about types and terms of work as being forced labour

FORCED LABOUR IN EUROPE

EuropeTrafficking appears to be the main route into forced labour in Europe. While much of the attention has been focused on victims of sexual exploitation, there is growing evidence that many are being trafficked for forced labour in agriculture, domestic service, construction work and sweatshops. Victims of forced labour in Europe come mainly from Asia, former Soviet republics, Eastern Europe and Africa.

Go to the European Industrial Relations Observatory

THE WORLD OF MODERN CHILD SLAVERY

When it is mentioned we tend to think of people, almost always black people; degraded, abused and bound in chains, and we tend to think of such images, and the word slavery itself, as belonging to another era.

We do not see slavery as belonging to our world, not as something which is still happening today.
Reports Rageh Omar

TOMATO PICKING IN NORTH AMERICA

Guadalupe Gonzalez, 37, is one of the thousands of mainly-Hispanic migrants who work as tomato-pickers in the fields of Immokalee, southern Florida.

MODERN SLAVERY

The BBC reports

IN 1833

The Bishop of Exeter and three business colleagues were paid nearly £13,000 to compensate them for the loss of 665 slaves in 1833.