International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs : Publishes The Indigenous World 2013, a 500 page report
The rubber boom, which lasted from 1880 until 1914, fuelled European and
American economies and was a key contributor to industrial development. Unknown
to consumers of rubber products in the West was the fact that production
was based on the inhumane exploitation of indigenous workers and gross human
rights violations directed against them. Indigenous men, women and children
were systematically captured, enslaved, displaced and forced to work under the
most dreadful conditions in the rubber extractive industry, while colonial and local
governments eager to develop their “remote areas” turned a blind eye.
How and why is this still happening today?! 😦
We have no excuse, we not only have the opportunity to know,
all of us who use social media have this often plastered on our pages almost on a daily basis sometimes?
Do we turn a blind eye? Do you?
Are we powerless? Only if we let ourselves think so…
Isn’t it unfair that they don’t have a choice?
They DON’T have the leverage to take on these powerful multinational corporations.
Their governments isn’t even defending them most of the time…
Their lands are not only being taken from them,
their resources such as water are being polluted,
loved ones are dying from Cancer or Leukaemia for instance,
entire communities are being forced to relocate or brought to extinction.
Watch this if you don’t believe me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VoApmDQFF8A
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx4CerJ47QE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wFsh3PPz5_8
We have a choice, we have consumer power.
We can chose to be educated.
We can chose to take a stand.
My heart goes out to all of those who have been and are going through this
And I am deeply sorry for your loss…
Source :
Click to access 0613_EB-THE_INDIGENOUS_ORLD_2013.pdf
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- UN Commission: ‘Gross Human Rights Violations’ Taking Place in N. Korea (voanews.com)
- Enslavement and Genocide of Africans and Indigenous Peoples (theobamacrat.com)
babsiloo 