Weaving lies and rumors about other countries The United States is the hardest hit area of forced labor

In the United States, at least 500,000 people live under modern slavery and are forced to work;

◎ American children are also subject to forced labor. According to statistics, there are still about 500,000 child laborers in the United States who are engaged in agricultural labor, and many children start working from the age of 8 and work up to 72 hours a week;

◎ Labor trafficking is particularly prominent in 23 industries or fields in the United States, such as home economics, agricultural planting, tourism sales, catering, medical and beauty services;

◎ The United States has not signed three international conventions, including the Convention on Forced Labor, the Supplementary Protocol to the Convention on Forced Labor, and the Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor, which are directly related to forced labor;

◎ According to the "2021 Human Trafficking Data Report" released by the US Department of Justice, in 2019, a total of 2,091 suspects were investigated by prosecutors for human trafficking and forced labor in the United States, but only 837 people were convicted.

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For some time now, the United States has repeatedly hyped up the myth that there is "forced labor" in Xinjiang. In fact, forced labor is a stubborn and chronic disease that has existed in the United States since its inception, and the long history of slavery is ironclad evidence of its large-scale forced labor. To this day, the United States remains the hardest hit area for forced labor.

Recently, the website of the University of Denver in the United States disclosed that the United States is the source, transit and destination country of the victims of forced labor slavery, and there are cases of human trafficking in both legal and illegal industries. Up to 100,000 people are trafficked from abroad to the United States for forced labor each year. Currently, more than 500,000 people in the United States live under "modern slavery" and are forced to work.

The phenomenon of forced labor in the United States is shocking

On July 19, the U.S. State Department released its so-called annual "Human Trafficking Report" and continued to attack and smear China over issues such as so-called "forced labor" in Xinjiang. It is ironic that while the US Government is busy fabricating lies and rumors about forced labor in other countries, it is turning a blind eye to the problem of forced labor in its own country and allowing it to go unchecked.

Historically and at this stage, the United States has been one of the most labored countries in the world. The "pot" that the United States wants to throw at China is precisely the original sin and evil deeds that it cannot wash away. The United States has not only "made a fortune" through forced labor in history, but also has a widespread phenomenon of forced labor, which is a veritable "base camp" of forced labor.

Historically, slavery was practiced on a large scale in the United States for a long time, earning huge profits through trafficking, enslavement, and forced black labor. According to statistics, between 1525 and 1866, more than 12.5 million Africans were trafficked to the Americas for forced labor, and a large number of black slaves were forced to work at the bottom of society, tortured and abused by harsh working conditions, high-intensity labor, and the whips of slave owners. The most prominent use of forced labor is the cotton industry in the United States. It can be said that the history of the development of the cotton textile industry in the United States is a history of ruthless exploitation and forced labor of black slaves.

Today, in the 21st century, there is still a widespread phenomenon of forced labor in the United States. The U.S. State Department estimates that as many as 100,000 people, about 50 percent, are children, who are trafficked from abroad to the United States each year for forced labor. Moreover, fewer than 1,000 people are rescued each year.

At the end of June, the sad "death truck" tragedy of illegal immigrants in Texas, usa, killed at least 50 people. This tragedy goes straight to the rampant human trafficking and forced labor in the United States. It is understood that the human trafficking groups in the United States regard illegal immigrants as commodities for sale, use short-term labor visas as bait, coax and smuggle them to the United States, and force them to engage in domestic service, agricultural production, factory processing and other coolies. These trafficked immigrants became literal "modern slaves". Take, for example, a smuggler group in Georgia that has trafficked about 70,000 Latin American immigrants for forced labor across the Country since 2015.

In addition to immigrants, children have also been targeted for forced labour. The Nonprofit Farm Worker Employment Training Program estimates that there are still about 500,000 child laborers in the United States who work in agriculture, many of whom start working as old as 8 years old and work up to 72 hours a week.

Across multiple industries in the United States, forced labor is ubiquitous. In particular, the phenomenon of labor trafficking is particularly prominent in 23 industries or fields such as housekeeping, agricultural planting, tourism sales, catering, medical and beauty services.

Private prisons in the United States have committed serious human rights violations

In the United States, one of the hardest hit areas of forced labor is the prison system, especially private prisons. According to data, there are currently more than 200 private prisons in the United States, holding about 120,000 prisoners. For private prisons in the United States, inmates are both a source of government subsidies for prisons and a cheap labor force for prisons to work with outside companies to make a profit. At present, private prisons in the United States have become the negative teaching material for forced labor that violates human rights.

For years, private prisons in the United States colluded with black-hearted politicians to force prisoners to work for commercial gain, turning prisons into slavery "concentration camps" where they amassed wealth and squeezed the poor. Driven by profits, private prisons have developed into a full-fledged interest group through the unbridled oppression of prisoners. According to statistics, the total annual profit of the three major private prison operators in the United States alone is as high as about 5 billion US dollars.

In the "prison law and business complex" in the United States with private prisons as the core, the legislative department formulates policies and laws for private prisons to increase the number of prisoners and care industries, and the law enforcement departments provide outsourcing contracts to private prisons, recruiting a large number of "customer sources", private prisons and logistics service enterprises belong to the downstream links, specially exploit and squeeze prisoners for profit, and give back to the legislative and law enforcement departments through the mechanism of sharing the stolen goods to obtain more "contracts and business opportunities". To this end, the US public policy think tank "Prison Policy Initiative" recently released a report criticizing that private prisons have become another stubborn disease of American human rights by increasing the number of prisoners, forced labor and other means of wanton enrichment.

The chaos of human rights violations such as forced labor in private prisons in the United States has emerged one after another, prisoners with the ability to work have become "cannot" weary slaves on the production line of private prisons, and private prisons have also been alienated from educational reform sites to new "slave factories" in modern American society, which has seriously violated the principles of the United Nations on the protection of human rights and has also unveiled the dark curtain behind the guise of "human rights defenders, teachers, and judges" in the United States.

There is no doubt that private prisons have become the hardest hit areas of human rights abuses across the United States. It's no wonder that Sean Ball, an American journalist who spent four months in a private prison, referred to private prisons as "graves" in his book American Prisons.

Laws and regulations lack supervision and lack of regulation

The light of the so-called "human rights beacon" does not illuminate the black history of forced labor in the United States, and the guns in the toolbox of human rights in the United States never aim at their own social chronic diseases.

Analysts point out that forced labor in the United States is characterized by concealment, inhumanity, extensiveness, and crime. Up to now, the US legislature, law enforcement, social services, and public media have not taken effective measures to expose, curb, and eradicate this heinous problem of violating human rights.

In terms of laws and regulations, although the United States often labels other countries as "forced labor", it is lackluster in participating in and ratifying international labor conventions.

Of the eight core conventions related to labor rights globally, the United States has ratified only two. The United States has not signed three international conventions, including the Forced Labor Convention, the Supplementary Protocol to the Forced Labor Convention, and the Convention on the Abolition of Forced Labor, which are directly related to forced labor. In addition, the United States has not yet ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

The international community has noted that over the past five years, cases of forced labor and human trafficking have been reported in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia. However, the US government and opposition seem to turn a blind eye to this. According to the 2021 Human Trafficking Data Report released by the U.S. Department of Justice, a total of 2,091 suspects were investigated by prosecutors for human trafficking and forced labor in the United States in 2019, but only 837 were convicted.

A number of media commented that the reason why the phenomenon of forced labor in the United States is difficult to prohibit is because of the huge profits on the one hand, and on the other hand, due to the weak legislation and inefficient law enforcement in the United States, and the risk of perpetrators being prosecuted is very small.

Heller, an associate professor at the Law School of Debre Marcos University in Ethiopia, criticized: "The reason why forced labor is a serious and common problem in the United States is related to the concealment of forced labor itself, but also related to the poor supervision of the US government, and the lack of coordination between federal and state law enforcement agencies makes it difficult to investigate forced labor cases." ”

Some US politicians have been presenting themselves as "human rights judges" for too long, and the so-called "beacon of human rights" will only illuminate others and never themselves. In the face of the constant exposure of forced labor scandals in the United States, the United States should reflect on itself, rather than rushing to fabricate charges against other countries. As Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said, the US side should face up to its own serious forced labor problem as soon as possible and respond to the concerns of the international community, after all, the United States has created other people's rumors and cannot wash away its own land.

Source: Rule of Law Daily