Outlawed, yet it persists

Slavery, in all its forms, has been outlawed in international human rights treaties, in international labor rights agreements and in almost every country worldwide. Nonetheless it persists as a grave abuse of human rights in many countries. Why does slavery persist?

Comments

[Brent Hoffert (Vic)]

Haha!! I'm the first one again!

Anyway, slavery persists because people want to get something for nothing. If there was an easier way to get work done for free, then they'd take that offer up. To slave owners, slaves are just 'tools' that should be used.

[Emily Saeger 7B]

Slavery persists because the slave owners are trying to get things done the cheap way. In my opinion they are just taking the easy way out in life. They are buying slaves for a couple dollars and are making them do all the work. They think that the slaves benefit them and they have to do less and they earn more money while beating people for doing their tasks wrong. They will use the slaves for as long as they want to and than they can just throw them away as if they didn't mean anything to them. So, slavery persists because the slave owners want to have a way to get things done the quickest way without losing any of their profits. Their solution to that problem was to buy slaves.

[Kate Ebel]

I agree with Brent, but I think there's a little more to it also. Slavers are getting a lot of money from selling the cocoa beans and they're not paying their workers anything. And they get away with it all the time, all around the world. It's so simple for them to hide and run their plantations out in the middle of nowhere. The slaves can't escape and they make all the money without any problems. It probably makes them feel good about themselves when they can order people, that they consider lower than themselves, around on the plantations and live in prosperity. They don't have to supply proper nutrition and living areas for thousands of workers, so they can keep all the good stuff for themselves. The thing about this whole process is that IT WORKS! Look how many countries like America buy from them and don't bother to see the horrors behind the products. They make money from America and get away with their sickening business with no troubles. Every once and awhile one of the plantations gets caught, but it doesn't happen often enough to stop them. It just forces them to be more careful and be ready for searches. By keeping our noses out of it and buying from them we're helping them prosper with hardly any problems. They know what they're doing and aren't afraid to defy the law.

[Brent Hoffert (Vic)]

If they were making as much money as you people are saying that they do then it would be a different argument. The truth is that the slave owners AREN'T making very much money. If they were making that much money then they would live in better houses. The price for the actual cocoa beans is pitifully low, and I think that the owners make about $680/year.

[Sam Krivin]

Slavery persists because as the price of cocoa rises, less people are buying it. Farmers think that if they produce more cocoa, then they could recieve more money. The truth is that when the farmers buy more slaves, they lose money. When the govenment arrests the farmers for keeping slaves, they just lose more money, so there is no point in keeping slaves anyway.

[Brent Hoffert (Vic)]

The price for buying the actual cocoa beans is falling, where as the price for processed chocolate is rising...Just a quick correction.

~Vic

[Leah Friess]

why does slavery persist? i think it's because of greed. who wouldn't want someone to do all our work for free?

[Kate Ebel]

Ok, so maybe they don't make that much money, like Brent said, but in Africa I think that a quarter in their money buys a little more than in our country. To us it might not seem like a lot, but to them it might actually be a sufficient amount. I'm not positive about that and will admit it if I'm wrong. Even though the price is falling they don't have to pay for the land to rent it, like we do, and they get to keep all the money for themselves. They only have to give the slaves enough to sustain life and then the rest is for them. The worst part is that when the slavers feel that a slave is worn out like a doll they toss it away and don't have to deal with them anymore. People make it too easy for them!!

[Kristofer Rivers 6C]

Slavery persists because the need for slaves is there and will always probably be there. When people want to make money without paying workers you will begin to get slavery. It some of these places the people have very little money and they want to make money, a lot of it, so they get slaves. As long as there are places with a good number of people in poverty there will be slaves. Slaves would be greatly lessoned if everyone was rich, but we know that that would never happen. To them, slaves are the best way to make money and save money. As long as there is a need for slaves we will always have slaves in some place or another.

[Drew Colagio]

Slavery persists today because cocoa farmers need workers and cheap ones at that. So they think it ok to pay nothing for child labor, But it's not those kids have rights to. The movie just proves my point, all the kids wanted was to earn a few bucks for their family, but the cocoa farmers have a different future for the kids and most of them don't get paid a single penny for there hard work. Then when we buy/eat the chocolate we don't even give into the fact that we're paying for slaves to work.

[Stephanie Baunach]

Slavery mostly persists because of money. Many of the plantations owners are not rich, and feeding and keeping slaves costs a bundle. And also, nobody will work for no money. That's mostly why plantation owners must steal their slaves. Also, it's cheap labor. No money will go to pay the workers, so the owners get to keep the money for their own. The price of chocolate is also getting tight. Plantations owners would rather not spend the money for the workers.

[David Ortwein]

Slavery is still happening in the world today because large companies are building factories in third world nations and hiring millions of people. These people are being hired at starting wages of a few cents a day. The companies due this becuase they pay the employees such little and they sell the products for more expensive prices. Then the company makes millions of dollars more a year.

[Luke Langraf]

There is slavery because the comparines dont want to pay money and they can get a lot of slaves because they lie to them. We should stop slavery. But the compaines make money off of the slaves and they dont want to. We should find a way.

[jimmy quinn]

I believe slavery persists because the owners can get the slaves for virtually nothing. It is easy to get slaves so they can make money without having to do anything.

[Ryan Hassick]

Slavery persists because the slave owners need cheap workers that work hard and are easy to control. They buy the slaves for a small amount of cash and then the slaves work for the slave owner until they aren't needed anymore. In the amont of time they work if they were being paid they would have recieved a lot more money then what their slave master bought them for. They are working for nothing while the master gets free labor from them.

[John Lukaszczyk]

Slavery persists because people aren't taking the appropriate steps to stop it. Yes, it's illegal, but that doesn't stop it. Not enough people are trying to stop it, so it persists. If people tried harder, they could stop it. Since slavery is still existant, people clearly need to try harder.

[Thomas Nardo]

I don't think slavery will thrive very long because of the slavers are torturing their slaves. If I could do anything about it I would, but I am not sure what any of us can do .

[Scott Enslin`]

I do agree that slavery is wrong but to me it is one of the hardest things to stop. I don't think that we need to go to war over since we already did in the civil war. Even if we do go to war we won't beable to stop all slavery. If we do stop a country or plantation of slavery they most likely we just start all over agian. So i feel that that there is no real clear answer or solution to slove slavery.

[Eric Anthony]

I think that the only way to stop slavery to go to evey place where is to go and put the people that are holding the people in slavery and put the in jail so that they can't hold any more people hostage andthe other thing is taht you could go on strike but I still think that the poepl would still put people in danger.

[mark galluppi]

i feel that slavery won't be able to be completly stopped but i think we can do more than what we thimk we can.

[Kelly Lowry]

Company and factory owners have one thing in mind, money. Slavery is one of the best ways to make the largest profit you can. It is wrong, brutal, and inhumane, but company and factory owners look past that. Slavery persists because it's fairly easy to get slaves, it is a very good profit booster, and many people are not aware that slavery is still occuring in the world. So if no one knows about it, it can't hurt, right?

[Brett Ryan]

Slavery presists because of slave owners abillity to take advantage of these helpless people. They (slave owners) practically have no heart. These people(slaves) have poor health, no money, and almost no job, why wouldn't the nasty slave owners want to take advantage of them? (not saying i would, because im 100% agaisnt slavery) They are almost free, and they will work just to eat... it's very easy to take these people's (slaves) lives, it's also very wrong. So slavery presists basically presists because of the slave owners themselves... they just don't care.

[Katie Johnson]

Slavery persists because people let it. If someone were to try and stop slavery the numbers may start to decrease and that may lead to lower amounts of slaves. All though slavery should have been delt with long ago and should never have started it does now and something needs to be done. Why can't we so something now to help prevent slaves in the future, then we can do something about all of those who have been hurt by slavery.

[Kate Ebel]

I also think that slavery persists because the slaves don't/can't put up any resistance. They know that people are watching them and will beat them if they're too slow. If they try to rise up against the slavers who have weapons like chains they will either be beaten to death or almost to death and then tortured for awhile. Also they have seen others try to run away, but basically every time they are caught. It's not like they have anywhere to go even if they did manage to avoid the search parties. They're practically out in the middle of nowhere and hidden from civilization. They probably don't have enough energy to make it very far anyway, because they are worked too hard, underfed and beaten. If they got away they wouldn't have anything to eat. It must be terrible to have to resign yourself to the awful fate of brutal slavery!

[Kayla Ruth]

I also think slavery persists because slaves have been getting hurt too much and are suffering from pain from the owners because they arent doing their jobs or what the slave owners are teling them to do. They are always being watched. It's really disturbing to see people treated this way. Today this is still happening and its not fair to those who suffer. They have no energy too (like Katie Johnson said) to get anywhere. They are stuck working hard for their whole lives. You only live one life and it shouldnt be as a slave working for their owners.If someone had the courage to stop slavery they wouldnt have to deal with what they do everyday.