E-mail a friendE. Benjamin Skinner
airdate April 22, 2008
From Latin America, Africa and the Middle East, Benjamin Skinner has reported on a broad range of topics for such publications as the Los Angeles Times and Foreign Affairs. He met his first slavery survivor in '03, while on assignment for Newsweek International in Sudan. After four years of research, some of which was undercover, on four continents, Skinner tells the story of people who live in slavery, those who have escaped and those who own or traffic in slaves in his new book, A Crime So Monstrous.
Journalist and author says there are more slaves in the world today than at any point in human history. (3:29)
E. Benjamin Skinner
Tavis: Ben Skinner is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in "Newsweek International" and "Foreign Affairs" magazine. His critically acclaimed first book is called "A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face With Modern-Day Slavery." Ben Skinner, nice to have you on the program.
E. Benjamin Skinner: Great to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Let me start with terminology, because words have meaning. I wonder what the definition is that you build this text around; the definition of slavery, that is. Then I want to follow up and talk about why, then, we feel the need to say modern-day slavery. But let's start first with that definition of slavery.
Skinner: The definition is tremendously important. Slaves are those forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence. And by that mere definition, there are more slaves in the world today that at any point in human history.
Tavis: How is that possible? Because I know the person watching right now is thinking, as I'm thinking, did he just say that there are more slaves today than at any point in history?
Skinner: There are more slaves today then at any point in human history, because what we're talking about is with a billion people living on less than a dollar a day, the largest potentially enslaveable pool of human beings at any given time.
Now slavery today results from two major factors. We're talking about withering poverty and underdevelopment, and then we're talking about unscrupulous criminals who will come in and take advantage of that isolation, that poverty, that underdevelopment, to make a profit.
Tavis: By that definition or definition built around those two factors, then one doesn't have to be a rocket scientist to start picking out places on the global map where those conditions exist that would allow slavery to thrive. We're talking places like Haiti - run the list.
Skinner: Absolutely. Well first of all, every country on Earth, as far as we know, there have been slaves discovered. But if we're plotting it on a map, the place, the area of the world that would have the most points would be South Asia - Nepal, Pakistan, India. But certainly Haiti, as well.
And right now, what's going on in Haiti with the food riots and the insecurity that's taking place there at the moment is expanding the pool exponentially, and we don't know how far it's expanding it. But I can tell you from having spent much time on the ground there and seeing the vulnerability, what's going on right now in Haiti is tragic.
Tavis: In the text, you offer examples of what we mean by people who are enslaved. Without regard to country on the map, tell me what we're talking about here in terms of how they're being maltreated, what they're being enslaved to do. Talk to me about what these conditions are.
Skinner: Sure. We're talking generally about people that are in some form of debt bondage. If you take 16 slaves, 15 of them will be in some form of debt bondage - forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence, with a debt, oftentimes a fictional debt, oftentimes a debt from three generations or more back, that is used as leverage to keep them in place.
Tavis: When you say debt, you mean - what do you mean by debt. We're so Americanized, for obvious reasons. When we think debt, we think debt to a particular creditor. What do you mean by debt in this instance?
Skinner: What I'm talking about is a man taking a loan of 62 cents, for example - in this case, I'm talking about a specific individual that I met in north India. His grandfather had taken a loan of 62 cents to pay for the - it was the meager bribe pride for his son's wedding.
Three generations later and three slave masters later, his grandson was still enslaved, paying off a fictional debt, forced to work under threat of violence for no pay beyond subsistence, by a man who local police in north India knew was a serial killer.
Tavis: This raises the obvious question, it seems to me at least, then, how governments can know that they have these conditions inside of their country, abject poverty - back to what you said earlier - abject poverty, combined with unscrupulous, unsavory dealers who want to take advantage of this abject poverty. They know these conditions exist, they know that these persons are enslaved, and yet it continues to exist. How does that happen?
Skinner: Well, because every country on Earth has passed laws against slavery; they are able to say in international fora, "Well, slavery doesn't exist in our borders, because we say it doesn't exist." The problem is when you analyze it on the ground, as I did - take Haiti, for example. Five hours from New York, from where I live in New York, I was able to pull up on a street and there were four men in front of a barber shop.
And everybody in the neighborhood knows what these guys do, and the local police know what these guys do. And one of the men came over and said, "You need to get a person." And we started to negotiate for a 9-year-old girl. This man offered to sell me a 9-year-old girl with the explicit use of this girl being for domestic and sexual slavery. And the asking price was $100, and I bargained him down to $50.
Tavis: I take it, though, you didn't actually go through with it.
Skinner: I did not.
Tavis: Yeah.
Skinner: I had a principle throughout this book that I would not pay for human life. I would always go to local authorities and give them the details of the operation that I'd just done, and I would give them as much information as they would need to prosecute. And in almost every case, I had no evidence that they followed through. On four continents I either witnessed or was offered - I either witnessed the sale or was offered for sale human beings, and as far as I know?
Tavis: Nothing prosecutable.
Skinner: Nothing -
Tavis: Prosecuted.
Skinner: Nothing prosecuted. Absolutely prosecutable.
Tavis: Exactly.
Skinner: But we're talking about a lack of will, a denial that this is really slavery, and in many cases a lack of resources in order to go into these communities and break these monsters' backs.
Tavis: So if we know, then, that in certain parts of the world abject poverty is not going to go away any time soon, if we know, then, that these unsavory thugs, criminals, are going to take advantage of that, if we know, then, that in the places you went and talk about in the text it isn't taken seriously and consequently not prosecuted, disabuse me of the notion, then, that this problem's going to go away any time soon.
Skinner: Well, this is absolutely something that we can end in our lifetimes, and it's critical to make this point. The end of slavery cannot wait for the end of poverty. But without targeted development programs to communities, to these small, isolated communities that traffickers are already targeting, we're not going to be able to solve this problem.
This can't just be a law enforcement issue, although certainly beefing up the laws, pressuring foreign governments - and it's a U.S. burden, by the way, to do this. According to the 2000 Trafficking Victims Protection Act, it's the responsibility of the State Department and the administration to pressure foreign governments to free slaves within their own borders.
So part of that is pressuring them to enforce their laws, another part of that certainly is these targeted development programs.
Tavis: Since you raised the U.S. government, if my recollection serves me well, and it doesn't always, but if it does, I can recall at a particular time, President Bush, in fact, to his credit, raising this issue. Let me ask if you recall that as well, number one, and what happened after he raised it?
Skinner: You're absolutely right. He raised it in several fora. His focus was always one form of slavery, which is sexy slavery, which is slavery that takes place within the commercial sex industry. And he justly - I think what you're thinking of is the 2003 speech in front of the U.N. general assembly.
And the problem with the timing of that is this was September of 2003. The first part of that speech was all about Iraq, the second part was all about human trafficking, and everybody talked about the first part and it was as if Iraq was dropped in a pool and there were no ripples for the second part. Nobody paid any attention.
Tavis: Which raises two questions, then, back to my first question. What happened after President Bush did that, with regard to the administration and the U.S. government, and two, what do you make of the fact that it's not just taken seriously by governments but that the media didn't really delve into the story.
Skinner: First of all, the administration, there's been one small office within the U.S. State Department that has been putting pressure on foreign governments to combat slavery, and there's one individual that I profile in this book, along with my own travels, going undercover and talking to slaves overseas. I profile one individual who has - I dub him the anti-slavery czar, and he was not only pressuring foreign governments but also pressuring our government to do more on this.
The problem is you're not going to find anybody in Washington that says that they are not for fighting slavery. It's how high up in their inbox it is. And eventually, what my sense was of his discovery was that he could not push people at the highest levels of government to care about this to the extent that they needed to care about it.
Tavis: Let me ask, then, very quickly, what the media ought to be doing about this and what we, as everyday people, ought to be doing about it, if anything.
Skinner: Excellent question. There are three critical elements that I talk about in the book. First of all, get to know modern slaves. Now I realize not everybody's going to go undercover and find them and find traffickers and find people that liberate them, as I did with this book. But they can certainly read the account of the travels.
Secondly, support some of the organizations - and I talk about two in the book in particular - that are the front line fighters against this, that are the new abolitionists. These are the heirs to our 19th century forebears who as slaves and abolitionists resisted slavery. The two groups that I talk about are Free the Slaves and Anti-Slavery International. On my website at CrimeSoMonstrous.com you can see both of these organizations.
And the third, in this year in particular, make this an issue that the candidates talk about. It doesn't have to be a campaign issue. It shouldn't be a wedge issue. But it should be an American issue, and it should be something that they pledge American prestige to fighting.
Tavis: The book is called "A Crime So Monstrous: Face to Face with Modern-Day Slavery," it's author, E. Benjamin Skinner, with a forward in this book by our former U.S. ambassador, Richard Holbrook. Ben, nice to have you on the program.
Skinner: Great to have been.
Tavis: Good to see you.
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