Slavery Among Women and Children

Globalization and Social/Human Injustices

Human slavery/sex trafficking

The menace of slavery and trafficking for purpose of sexual exploitation is a menace that greatly neglected or not talked about by the high and mighty yet it is a problem that ravages families on a daily basis. Across the globe, there are people who benefit from the modern day slavery and there are countries that act as source, most of them being the underdeveloped nations where poverty is high and unemployment is also significantly high. These two factors when combined, often push affected families to willingly or otherwise let go of their daughters into the forced labor or sex slavery in more developed nations. The women and children are the most affected groups in the slavery business since they are the most vulnerable in the society. Against the common belief that slavery is obsolete, the opening up of more borders and easy transportation system occasioned by the globalization trends has immensely increased the modern day slavery. There are between 700,000 to 4 million people who are shipped across borders against they wish on an annual basis (Kegley C.W. & Blanton S.L., 2011:Pp539).This population, upon landing on the other side of the borders or the destination land are subjected to sex slavery, prostitution, become domestic workers, held as child laborers with gross underpayment and in some instances are used as child soldiers. The leading form of human trafficking is sexual exploitation with the majority of the victims being women and children. Forced labor follows after sexual exploitation as a form of human trafficking with majority of the victims here being children. Majority of these victims of modern slavery are sold across the continents but there are some who are victims of interregional as well as domestic trafficking. This vice is a thriving business that is estimated by the UN to be generating between $12 and $17 billion annually, hence ranked as the third largest illicit trade after the trade in arms and drugs. Some of the most adversely affected countries are Ukraine, Russia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand. These are countries that have weak economies and weak systems that are exploited by the human traffickers. Countries that have armed conflicts further make it easy for the traffickers to take advantage of the breakdown in the systems and move populations across the borders Kegley C.W. & Blanton S.L., 2011:Pp540).

Solutions to modern slavery

Adopting of the social business by organizations can help tackle the issue of modern day slavery. In Bangladesh, figureheads like Professor Muhamad Yunus of Grameen Bank have impressed on the society to adopt more of the social business as a measure to ensure that the poor of the society are also catered for and not pure concentration on the profits among the industries and business establishments (ForaTv, 2008).

Adopting the social business is geared towards changing the social perspective in business and once these change, the bottom poor will have sufficient to sustain their lives, in this case, they will not have the urge to subject their children and women to slavery abroad for the sake of making money from the sale or regular remittances from prostitution.

Maximizing profits is not the prime motivation in social business, in as much as profits are generated, but to ensure that the low-income are financially benefitted by the venture and the social venture is made to grow through re-investment hence serving more people at the end of it all.

Utilizing new ways of thinking that targets sustainability of the business and growth within the society by looking at the bottom of the Pyramid (BOP) can help solve this public menace. The business that targets the BOP will promote the inclusive capitalism that will expose the poor to the gods and services. The competition that the private sector will have towards this section of the pyramid in the economy will draw attention to the poor as consumers which will ensure that the very poor are exposed to the economic opportunities that there may be and in this case reduction in poverty and the subsequent modern day slavery.

Using the BOP approach will provide potential growth opportunities for the private sector and in effect, this sector will absorb more of the poor in the society hence curbing lack of employment. The old approaches are bound to fail in the contemporary business situations which are targeted at solving the societal problems like modern day slavery.

It is worth noting that the BOP market needs to be an integral part of the work that the private sector engages in. The BOP needs to be a core part of the private sector and not to merely engage in corporate social responsibilities. Once this BOP becomes the focus of the Multi-National Corporations, there is high possibility of helping eradicate the social vices that afflict the poor like the modern day slavery (Prahalad C.K., 2005:Pp11).

There is need to focus on economic systems that help bring in the extremely poor into building up their own business. Since most of the countries that are affected by the problem of slavery are the third world countries, the strengthening of the poor to run their own small businesses will ensure the reduction in poverty at the very domestic level hence discouraging the susceptibility to being trafficked to other countries in search of menial jobs. This approach is viable since it aims at encouraging the small business and business opportunities that the poor of the village have and promoting those products to ensure these opportunities and businesses or goods are turned into profit making ventures that will help sustain the needs of the locals within the poor community (Stepping Up for Change, 2011).

Instituting changes in the political approach to the issue of modern day slavery is a prerequisite to ending modern day slavery in Bangladesh. When decisions are made at the policy making levels, there is need to have the full and significant representation of the people who are most affected by the vice rather than have a panel that consists of academicians who have not had the experience of slavery. The inclusion of the people whoa re directly affected will give pertinent ideas on how slavery in the modern times can be curbed and the lives of children and women saved and changed for the better (Gates Foundation, 2012).

Social business and economist reactions

The idea of social business principally operates with the good of the society in mind rather than with the maximization of profits for the organization as a priority. The foundation of this is to enable the very poor of the society to be able to access the basic needs and necessities that they cannot afford. There are businesses or companies that are geared towards ensuring that the profits that are made are put back into the expansion of the production of the goods that the company deals in for the wider support of more people at the bottom of the pyramid.

The motivation in social business is the societal good and charity to the society hence in as much as the organization may make profits, the owner of the business does not take away the profits but redirects it towards helping the society. This is model that is not convectional and it is of interest to looks at the various economic approaches that different economists had and the possible reaction they would have on the idea of social business as a way of eliminating poverty and protecting human justice.

Adam Smith

He is one of the most respected economic philosophers of the 18th Century and he contributed immensely to the theories behind creation of wealth. In his book Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith argues that for the society to increase the wealth of the nation, there is need to exploit the natural resources available.

He also emphasizes that the government should not repress people who are self-interested since this self-interest is one of the richest natural resource. In this same line, he argued that nations would be extremely impoverished if they depend on altruism and charity hence these should be discouraged.

He is against work for benevolence but emphasizes on the need for compensation for any work done. He insists that self-interest motivates more than any other form of motivation (Buchholz T.G., 2007:Pp30).

From these arguments, it is apparent that Smith would not agree with the social business approach since it is directly the opposite of what he advocates for, social business encourages benevolence while smith's theory discourages it, the creation of wealth is central to Smith yet the social business does not hold that as a primary motivation. Smith is against charity and yet social business stands for that.

Karl Marx

This is a philosopher who believed that the capitalists system is an exploitative system that denied the workers their rightful pay and rather exploited their labor at a lesser compensation.

Karl Marx indicates that the human being is used as a machine of production and where possible, he is replaced by the actual machines to maximize production. He argues that the increased mechanization of production leads to more people being unemployed and increased production with a rise in the price. This increased unemployment among the masses would then cause unrest and the masses would rise against the capitalists bringing down the economic system.

This philosopher foresaw a classless society where after the revolution and the rebellion of the working class, there would be equality and no more of the capitalists, no proletariat and neither will there exist the workers. He envisioned a society where the poor had equal access to the resources and the means of production as the rich, they shall have been empowered (Buchholz T.G., (2007:Pp105-107).

The Karl Marx theory tends to agree with the support of the poor of the society and empowering them economically, from this perspective, he is likely to agree with the social business approach. The only difference that there could be is the fact that Karl Marx advocates for violent take over of the economy by the poor if the capitalists refuse to empower them.

John Maynard Keynes

Keynes was an economic theorist who generally agreed with the free market approach where self-interest was encouraged for the economy to grow.

He is also known for the proposal he made to the governments that they should use their central banks to regulate the interest rates where the government needs to lower the interest rates when the prices rise and raise them when the prices ten to fall.

He advocated for the borrowing by the government when the national economies experience a downturn, here he proposed that the governments need to borrow and spend the money in the bid to foster the economic activities. Part of the profit that will be experienced in the growing economy should then be used to repay the national debt (Library of Economic Liberty, 2014).

This economist disagrees with the social business ideology that does not encourage self-interest and doing business with the aim of making profits.

Friedrich von Hayek

Hayek was a known proponent of the classical liberalism in economics of nations. He was a believer in the free markets and letting the forces of the market to interplay and shape the market trends.

He also believed that the government was a significant force in driving down the interest rates making the credit cheap on a temporary basis by increasing the money supply.

Hayek was against the social economy arguing that there could never be sufficient data for the planners to be able to allocate resources accordingly, but rather, each individual has the knowledge about particular resources and potential opportunities to use these resources (Liberal International, 2014 ).