Going Way, Way Back To The Present

Humanitarianism, Open Borders, And Slavery

In a modern country in 2017, how would you define slavery?  The definition would surely include someone being forced to work against their will--in other words, someone who does not have the option or opportunity to resign or quit and walk away.  It would apply to a person who has no access to the protection of the country's labour laws.  It would include those over whose heads dire consequences hang if they refuse to work or neglect to do what they are told.  It would cover those who are held against their will and forced to work.

Do such things exist in the OECD countries today?  You bet they do.  It's not just that they exist: in truth such things have multiplied to the point where, we are told, they are now endemic.  We have incidents reported occasionally in New Zealand.  People seeking work or student visas pay large sums of money to "agents" who process them through the system.  Then they turn upon their "clients" and demand services and work against their will, until they pay off their debts.  But their "remuneration" is little more than a meagre sum of money to keep them physically moving.

In New Zealand, when such circumstances come to light and are reported to the authorities, interdiction and state vengeance follow, provided the abuse can be proven.  But whilst such things remain underground they continue.  In the UK, we are now told, slavery operates in every large town and city in Britain.  Europe has become one of the fastest growing regions for slavery in the world.

How? and Why? are the relevant questions.  Porous, uncontrolled, non-policed borders are a fundamental cause.  This is a crisis is an unintended consequence of the open-borders regime that has operated for years throughout the European Community.

The National Crime Agency (NCA) warned slavery in the UK is “far more prevalent than previously thought”, as analysts revealed that mass migration has driven Europe to record the largest increase in slavery of any world region in 2017.  Reporting that the organisation is currently assisting 300 policing operations targeting modern slavery, the NCA said the crime was affecting “every large town and city” in Britain, with victims as young as 12 trafficked in from Europe.

NCA vulnerabilities director Will Kerr said the number of people trafficked and enslaved in the UK is far higher than previously thought, the agency estimating the number of victims lies “likely in the tens of thousands.  The more we look for modern slavery the more we find evidence of the widespread abuse of the vulnerable. The growing body of evidence we are collecting points to the scale being far larger than anyone had previously thought,” he said.  [Breitbart London]

The report identifies the slaves as coming predominantly from Nigeria, Vietnam, and Eastern Europe.  They are working not just in the "traditional" activities such as prostitution, but in a whole range of "mainline" industries such as construction, agriculture, and food processing.

According to The Times:

Slavery is increasing faster within the European Union than in any other region as traffickers force migrants into work to repay their debts.  Countries with key entry points for migrants and refugees such as Italy, Greece and Cyprus were found by researchers to have the most forced labour within the bloc. Twenty of its 28 member states recorded a lower performance in tackling slavery compared with last year, according to a global index published today by Verisk Maplecroft, a British analytics company.

Smugglers and agents demand huge fees for passage across the Mediterranean, leaving people vulnerable to exploitation. Slavery is becoming increasingly prevalent in farming, raising the risk of forced labour tainting food supply chains across Europe.  “Many illegal migrants entering the EU are so in debt to a trafficking gang or unscrupulous agents that they have no hope of paying that cost,” Alexandra Channer, a human rights analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.  [Emphasis, ours]

If your blood has risen to boiling point, dear reader it would be useful to re-state a hard, cold fact: this evil has recrudesced in our modern world because of the unintended consequence of open borders migration.  That credulous ignorant policy, promulgated by those who believe that evil is environmental only and not residing in the human heart, has given opportunity to the predators, who are legion.  Open borders allow the slavers to slip their "property" into a country, without detection or notice.

Strict, secure boarder control is essential to prevent human traffickers.  Those that are allowed to migrate need to be educated about their rights in law in the new country, including access to anonymous dob-in hotlines.  The provenance of every holder of an entry visa needs to be thoroughly checked and verified.  The penalty regime for the traffickers and slavers needs to change to conform more to lex talonis--an "eye for an eye".

The adage is this: if we truly care for the poor and the vulnerable we will maintain strict border controls.  We will also commit serious resource into detecting people traffickers and, once convicted, will apply condign punishment.

If we were to do this, we hazard a guess that within five years there would be no slavery in the United Kingdom, or in any other country presently found in similar circumstances, provided it recovers control of its borders.  Europe, however, is a lost cause, precisely because it is borderless.  It has already surrendered to the slavers.  That is one of the unintended consequences of humanitarianism--that hopeless doctrine which assumes all evil to be external in origin, never in the motives, thoughts, and intentions of the depraved, fallen human soul.

Apparently our modern slavers, intelligent exploiters of a business opportunity, picked up their depravity by breathing in air, or some such nonsense.