Bono's foundation gave just 0.12% of money to charity

Figures from the 2008 tax returns of ONE foundation, the singer's organisation, show it received $14,993,873 in donations from philanthropists in 2008, of which just $184,732 was distributed to three charities. So what happened to the rest? More than $8 million was spent on executive and employee salaries.

In addition Edun, Bono’s fashion label, shifted some of its production base from Africa to China. Edun had position itself as an “ethical” fashion house that was set up to aleviate poverty in … Africa.

What a hypocrite.

Read the full story on blogs.telegraph.co.uk - "Make Bono History".

I posted this on my facebook yesterday and got some good comments from friends:

Mara: "We must ask these so called charities and NGOs what percentage of the actual $ go to their intended causes."

Steve: "Why don't we see stories like this about NGOs in Cambodia being held accountable? Maybe due to a professional courtesy from the local government? You know, like the way that sharks don't eat lawyers!"

Caron: "Do not donate to NGO's based in Cambodia unless you've done a lot of research into their funds accountability! Corruption is rife! NGO's are a joke! You want to make a difference? Do it in your own town first."

Diana Saw: "I am so glad my friends know the truth. This is why I dislike many NGOs - especially after living in Cambodia and learning these NGOs exist for the staff, and not for the people they are supposed to be helping."

Steve: "Even some (many perhaps?) large NGOs that do some really good and important work here operate without a level of integrity and accountability that would be acceptable in their own home countries. So much for setting an example, demonstrating leadership and investing in innovation. Instead there are massive exports of mediocrity and greed in much too high a proportion that come along with the good stuff."

Han Han, Reddit - the Chinese and the Americans

 Han Han (韩寒) is the Chinese blogger on Time's most influential list. I caught him on CNN's Talk Asia and was very impressed.

I have to confess that my general impression of the Chinese is not good. My impression of the Chinese people is that they love money and are not too bothered with ethics. The milk scandal is a prime example of how I think Chinese people 杀人不眨眼 ("kill people without batting an eyelid") in the pursuit of money. In business, my impression of the Chinese is captured in their saying: "There are no good or bad businessmen; there is only the one that makes money and the one that doesn't."

Watching Han Han on TV that day was a real eye-opener. In that half-hour, I literally saw a paradigm shift in my mind and saw the Chinese in a different light. Han Han reminded me that people everywhere are the same. He's just an ordinary citizen fighting the same political forces we all battle with, in our respective countries, so as to achieve greater liberty and justice. (One of my favourite quotes is from the movie V for Vendetta: "People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.")

Later, I realised what was going on. Although ethnic Chinese, I have never felt much in common with the Chinese people, because culturally Singaporean Chinese are very different from the mainland Chinese (indeed with the Chinese elsewhere, such as those in the US or Indonesia or Thailand or Hong Kong - I do however enjoy Taiwanese chat shows and get the humour in a way I do not for mainland Chinese shows).

Very simply, we developed in different ways because of our different histories. I always find it strange when a mainland Chinese person says to me "You should know what I mean, being Chinese." In fact, I very often don't know he or she means. I may look Chinese but I had a very Westernised education specialising in Western philosophy (I have an M.A. in this). I also ended up with a Western partner whom I have been with for more than a decade now.

I am sure my education was key in causing me to rebel against many aspects of Chinese culture that simply did not make sense to me, above all, the cultural and religious practices that revolve around gaining prosperity (i.e., money - see what I mean?). I favour rationalism, appealing to reason and empiricism, than on hand-me-down customs and traditions. My parents and I rarely see eye-to-eye.

But of course culture is a hard thing to fight, so I retain some of it, such as a sense of filial piety that seems strange to my partner. I sometimes feel guilty for choosing this life, for giving my money to complete strangers, rather than to my parents and family - which is what Asian culture dictates. A very good friend from school whom I have known since we were 13 sometimes calls me "不孝女", literally, "unfilial daughter" - don't worry, despite this, we're still best friends and Khim has even given me money for Bloom which I am using to pay for Sina's university fees. :) Khim is the complete opposite. Unlike me who has chosen to live in another country away from my family, she returned early from a posting to Beijing just to be with her parents in Singapore.

Another reason why I do not considered the Chinese to be just like me is that I do not have close friends from China and have never had the opportunity to discuss their hopes and dreams and fears with them. (I do have a few on Facebook and really liked Daisy, a former freelance editor from Hainan I had worked with in Singapore. She was just the sweetest person.)

And even though I do read and write Chinese, I find it much, much harder than English, so would never spend the time to read Chinese blogs (unlike Khim whose Chinese is as powerful as her English, I might add). As a result, I never really understood how Chinese people think. What I know of the Chinese is what I see and read in the news.

I have the same impression of the US. Most of what I read about the US makes me dislike the country, its conspicuous consumerism, its foreign policies, its arrogance, its stupidity and self-righteousness. (To be perfectly honest, when the sub-prime crisis first happened in the US, I found it hard to sympathise with Americans, thinking, "Well, you were the people who voted for George W Bush - twice.")

However, the difference with Americans is I share their language and as a result have come to know many Americans which has helped promote my understanding of the people.

In fact, my favourite website, reddit.com is populated mostly by Americans. I always feel at home when I visit reddit, more so than when I visit a Singapore site. I recently shared this with my Facebook friends explaining why I love reddit and declared redditors to be "my people".

Language to me is a big barrier in understanding a culture and its people - this is why I find the many French and Koreans I meet in Cambodia strange. For this reason, I am interested in learning the French and Korean languages. This is also why I don't understand expats who live in Cambodia and don't make an effort to learn the language. How can you understand the people otherwise? (Not that learning the language will make you understand the Khmers, I can attest to that. It's is just a necessary, not a sufficient, condition.)

Anyway, on to Han Han.

Asia! magazine is published in Singapore by my friend Han Shih out of Singapore and has some great articles. Like this one - Chinese student offers to pay for job. Because the job market in China is so competitive, young people have to resort to taking a negative salary just to get one.

Asia! translated and published Han Han's blog post on the Foxconn suicides. (Some background for those not aware of the FoxConn scandal. "From Between Jan 2010 to May 2010, twelve Foxconn employees attempted suicide, with ten deaths... Compared to China's overall suicide rate, the suicide rate at Foxconn is not statistically aberrant but the rapid rate of the suicides is unusual...While offering an option to the [assaulted Reuters] reporter to file a police report, the police officer informed him that he is free to choose whichever option but he must note that Foxconn receives special status locally." - From Wikipedia on FoxConn).

Writes Han Han:

"If you increase the salary of Foxconn workers by tenfold, would that mean no one will kill himself? Well, only if inflation doesn’t increase tenfold. But of course the Big Boss won’t agree to it; even if he does, the government will issue orders to stop him.

"That our politicians have been able to flex their muscles in the international political arena, and play games, it’s all thanks to you – every one of you, cheap labour – for you are China’s bargaining chip, our GDP. Whether this is a consequence of China’s unique socialism or capitalism, it remains to be fathomed. What is clear is that such tragedies, much as they should be raging in our hearts, they remain splattered, smeared on the ground."

Click on asiamag.com here to read Han Han's entire post.

Microsoft's sweatshop?

This photo supposedly shows Chinese workers in a factory in Dongguan, China, slumped in exhaustion at their workstations. To be honest, it looks like they are napping to me, the way Cambodians do during their lunch break.

Anyway, this is what the UK's Daily Mail reports (surprising, since it's a right-wing tabloid):

"Showing Chinese sweatshop workers slumped over their desks with exhaustion, it is an image that Microsoft won't want the world to see.

Employed for gruelling 15-hour shifts, in appalling conditions and 86f heat, many fall asleep on their stations during their meagre ten-minute breaks.

For as little as 34p an hour, the men and women work six or seven days a week, making computer mice and web cams for the American multinational computer company.

This photo and others like it were smuggled out of the KYE Systems factory at Dongguan, China, as part of a three-year investigation by the National Labour Committee, a human rights organisation which campaigns for workers across the globe.

[...]

Microsoft said it was committed to the 'fair treatment and safety of workers'. A spokesman added: 'We are aware of the NLC report and we have commenced an investigation. 'We take these claims seriously and we will take appropriate remedial measures in regard to any findings of misconduct.'"

Dear Mr Peter Unsworth, CEO, Tetley Group

To Mr Peter Unsworth, CEO, Tetley Group
Mr. Ratan N Tata, Chairman, Tata Tea Ltd
Mr Percy T. Siganporia, Managing Director, Tata Tea Ltd

Sirs

Since November 19, local government officials have been distributing emergency ration coupons to workers and their families on the Nowera Nuddy estate. Tetley Tea claims adherence to the standard of the Ethical Tea Partnership, which stipulates that there be no harsh or inhumane treatment of tea estate workers. The government has recognized that the workers are hungry, the result of a policy of collective punishment deliberately inflicted to force these workers to renounce their human rights. I urge you to act to ensure that the estate is immediately reopened, that workers are paid their annual festival bonus and the back wages and rations from the period of the lock out which began on September 14, that the suspensions of the 8 workers are withdrawn and management commit to no recriminations against the workers, and that management issue an apology to Mrs Arti Oraon, whose life and that of her child were put at risk by management brutality. These are the demands of the Nowera Nuddy Estate (Tata Tea) Workers’ Action Committee, and I fully support them.

Yours sincerely,

Diana Saw

Incredibly, Tetley is a proud member of the Ethical Tea Partnership which, according to its website, "aims to improve the lives of tea workers".

This is the background to the protest organised by IUF.org, the Swiss-based International Union of Food, Agriculture, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Association.

"Tata, the transnational Indian conglomerate whose wholly-owned subsidiary Tetley makes the world famous Tetley Teas, has taken 6,500 people hostage through hunger. The hostages are nearly 1,000 tea plantation workers and their families on the Nowera Nuddy Tea Estate in West Bengal, India. The workers, living in poverty and always on the edge of hunger, are locked out and have been denied wages for all but two days' work since early August.

Management of the plantation, in which Tata holds the largest ownership share and exercises control, is pushing the entire plantation population into starvation in retaliation for a worker protest in August against the punishing treatment of an 8-months' pregnant worker who was denied maternity leave, forced to pluck tea, and then denied adequate medical treatment. Workers want the estate reopened and their wages paid, but reject the suspension of 8 workers who have been singled out for protesting vile abuses. They refuse to renounce their right to peacefully protest abusive exploitation - and they need your support."

Read more here.

The Ringworm Children

I just read about the film "The Ringworm Children", released in 2004. Directed by David Belhassen and Asher Hemias, it won the prize for "best documentary" at the Haifa International film festival:

In 1951, the director general of the Israeli Health Ministry, Dr. Chaim Sheba, flew to America and returned with seven x-ray machines, supplied to him by the American army.

They were to be used in a mass atomic experiment with an entire generation of Sephardi youths to be used as guinea pigs. Every Sephardi child was to be given 35,000 times the maximum dose of x-rays through his head. For doing so, the American government paid the Israeli government 300 million Israeli liras a year. The entire Health budget was 60 million liras. The money paid by the Americans is equivalent to billions of dollars today.

To fool the parents of the victims, the children were taken away on "school trips" and their parents were later told the x-rays were a treatment for the scourge of scalpal ringworm. 6,000 of the children died shortly after their doses were given, while many of the rest developed cancers that killed thousands over time and are still killing them now. While living, the victims suffered from disorders such as epilepsy, amnesia, Alzheimer's disease, chronic headaches and psychosis.

Apparently the motivation was eugenics, which is the theory that people can improve the quality of future genes by weeding out unhealthy and undesirable traits. Only Sephardi children received the x-rays: "I was in class and the men came to take us on a tour. They asked our names. The Ashkenazi children were told to return to their seats. The dark children were put on the bus."

Sephardi Jews originate in the Iberian Peninsula (modern Spain and Portugal) and also North Africa. They are contrasted with Ashkenazi Jews (literally, German Jews) who are Jews descended from the medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland in the west of Germany.

Giora Yoseftal (1912 – 1962) and one time Development Minister, Minister of Labour and Minister of Housing and Construction, called the Moroccan Jews "primitives" and "backward". Levi Eshkol (1895-1969) who served as the third Prime Minister of Israel called them "human rubbish" and "defective people". Nachum Goldman (1895–1982), a Polish-born Zionist and founder and longtime president of the World Jewish Congress, described North African Jewry "a catastrophic immigration". Dr Chaim Sheba, then director of the health ministry, believed in the genetic supremacy of the Ashkenazi Jews.

Jewssansfrontieres asks if Dr Sheba is Israel's Dr Mengele. Joseph Mengele was a doctor at the Nazi concentration camp in Auschwitz-Birkenau who was hated for his cruelty. In one instance, he drew a line on the wall of the children's block between 150 and 156 centimeters (about 5 feet or 5 feet 2 inches) from the floor, and sent those whose heads could not reach the line to the gas chamber. (I have to pipe up here since I fall into that category of shorties: Being short has its advantages, otherwise it would have been naturally weeded out by now. What advantages? Having a lower centre of gravity means shorter people can change direction faster. Just look at Maradona, best footballer ever, who is only 5'5". And I'm thinking of all the pint-sized East European champion gymnasts...)

In the film, a Moroccan lady is shown saying: "It was a Holocaust, a Sephardi Holocaust. And what I want to know is why no one stood up to stop it."

The passage I quoted is from a review of the film and you can read it in full here on infowars.

My Heroes: The Yes Men

I've been following The Yes Men for a few years now, ever since I saw the 2003 movie "The Yes Men". If you view my Blogger profile you will see a link to their site and I just added their link to this blog. If you haven't already checked them out, do so now on theyesmen.org.

Basically the Yes Men--Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno--pose as top executives of corporations in order to draw attention to these exploitative companies. Incredibly, the imposters have managed to fool many people, and have gotten spots on BBC, CNBC and others, to speak on behalf of the companies they are really slamming.

In one instance, posing as Dow Chemical representatives, the Yes Men claimed Dow will liquidate Union Carbide and use the resulting USD12 billion to pay for medical care for victims of the Bhopal disaster and clean up the site, as well as fund research into the hazards of other Dow products. After two hours of wide coverage, Dow issued a press release denying the statement, ensuring even greater coverage of the phony news of a cleanup. By the time the original story was discredited, Dow's stock had declined in value by $2 billion [!].

The Yes Men also use reductio ad absurdum or reduction to the absurd, leading to outrageous conclusions, such as the poor should eat recycled human waste or be turned into candles after death. The amazing thing when watching their presentations, often to men and women in suits, is how long it takes for people realise its all a hoax.

The Yes Men are hilarious. I wish I could do satire as well as these guys.

Anyway, my heroes were featured in Al Jazeera's The Fabulous Picture show this week:

Cambodian Barbie Doll

I just stumbled upon this: Princess of Cambodia™ Barbie® 2004 Collector Edition

Princess of Cambodia™ Barbie® Doll wears a slim silhouetted skirt that is fashioned from teal fabric that wraps around her, cinches at her waist, and drapes over her shoulder. The wrap, which features a golden geometric floral print, comes together in a vertical layer of pleats in front. A golden braided belt secures the wrap at her waist and features a golden buckle.She has long dark brown hair which cascades down from beneath her royal crown with faux sapphires and emeralds. Her outfit is accented by many golden elements including dangling earrings, an intricate armband, a braided golden sash, and golden shoes. For ages 3+.

The doll's outfit does look very similar to the Apsara dancer's I saw yesterday. Even the head dress looks like the real thing. Check out the picture of Angkor Wat behind the princess.

Googling "Mattel in Cambodia" turned up this blog entry by Anne Elizabeth Moore, an author and activist in Cambodia:

I told them about Mattel, and we did some little bit of math: at the garment factories here, you can earn about $45 per month. An average doll, book, pet, clothing, and furniture starter set from American Girl Place [another doll made by Mattel] costs $1000. If you go without food, health care, and entertainment for two and a half years working in a garment factory here, under similar conditions as the workers have when producing Mattel products—6 days per week, eight hour days--but do not take any overtime, you will work for around two and a half years before you can save up enough money to buy the starter kit. And if you produce ten dolls per hour (I have no idea how many dolls one can produce in an hour, but let’s just say ten), in that same time period you will have produced nearly 2000 dolls.

“It is sadly,” ChanNy said after a long, long silence.

Anne Elizabeth does point out Mattel has no factories in Cambodia and this is just an example. Mattel's toys are made primarily in China and some in Indonesia (it shut its last American factory in 2002). Mattel is not the worst company to work for. According to this New York Times article:

"In the 1990s, critics charged the company with running sweatshops in Asia. Now, independent analysts, and even watchdog groups, say Mattel may be the best role model for how to operate prudently in China....

"Mattel was one of only two major toy makers that agreed to allow a reporter for The New York Times to visit one of its factories in China — or even to put an executive on the phone to discuss the issue of Chinese product safety. Hasbro, LeapFrog and Zizzle — the maker of Pirates of the Caribbean toys, among others — all declined requests. Lego does not manufacture in China, but it declined a request to visit factories elsewhere. Aside from Mattel, only MEGA Brands of Canada said it would permit a visit."

In 2007, Mattel recalled 18.2 million items from factories in China.

Cheung Shu-hung, a Hong Kong businessman in his 50s and co-owner of the Lee Der Toy Company, which had made a number of toys for Mattel, committed suicide by hanging himself at one of his company's factories, after paying salaries due to all employees and sending them home. The factory had been producing toys to Mattel for more than 10 years without any bad records before this incident bankrupted it.

This reminds me of an Englishman who told me he had built a factory after getting a contract to supply to one of UK's biggest supermarket chains. Two years later, the supermarket chain found a cheaper supplier, so the poor guy was stuck with a big factory with no orders. He had not yet recoup the investment of the the factory.

It's not a good idea to rely on a couple of big clients for business. I'd rather Bloom supplied to dozens of smaller outfits, even though it takes more effort (forget the 80-20 rule) and build good relations with them, thereby spreading our risk.

Human trafficking and slavery in the USA

In another post, I had written about anti-human trafficking organisation Free the Slaves which is the US Sister organization of Anti-Slavery International, apparently the world’s oldest human rights organization.

Dr Kevin Bales is President of Free the Slaves, and has recently co-written a new book with Ron Soodalter, called "The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today". Dr Bales's 1999 book "Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy" was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and was published in ten other languages.

For this new book, the two men spent last three years delving into slavery across America, "and thinking carefully about how America can fulfill its promise of liberty and become slave free".

Kerry Kennedy (Founder, the Robert Kennedy Center for Human Rights) said of the book:

"Most Americans believe that slavery in our country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. They are wrong. As Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter document in this excellent volume, human bondage is a reality for thousands of children, women, and men living in the United States. The Slave Next Door exposes slavery in today's America in all its forms, and sounds a call to arms to government, corporations, and private citizens alike."

You can read reviews and buy "The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today" here on amazon.com or here on barnesandnoble.com or here from the University of California Press. If you'd like a 20% off, email me and I will give you the code for ucpress.edu.

Primark caught again for lying

Last year, I wrote about the BBC exposing the lies of Primark, a UK high street retailer and how there are similar lying organisations in Cambodia.

At that time, Primark apologised and sacked three of its suppliers. Well, here they are again, up to their old tricks. This time the BBC caught a Primark supplier paying immigrant workers in the UK, 40 per cent less than the minimum wage.

The supplier is TNS Knitwear Ltd, based in a former Victorian mill in Manchester, which supplies clothing to several high street fashion chains.

A BBC reporter went undercover and was paid £3.50 an hour, and not £5.73 an hour, which is what the law dictates and what Primark's own code of conduct promises: that workers are paid a living wage. In addition, workers had to work in the bitter cold in their coats as TNS Knitwear provided no heating.

"This is the importation of third world working conditions into Europe and in this case into the UK," Neil Kearney, of the International Textile, Garment and Leather Workers' Federation told the BBC. "There's no such thing as cheap clothing; somebody has to pay and in this case it's the workers in Manchester who pay."

Following this latest BBC expose, Primark was forced by ETI (Ethical Trading Initiative) to remove its branding from Primark stores and websites.

You can read the full report and watch the programme on the BBC's website here and you can click here to find out more about Primark.

Khmer girl's eye gouged out by brothel owner

"Glance at Pross from her left, and she looks like a normal, fun-loving girl, with a pretty face and a joyous smile. Then move around, and you see where her brothel owner gouged out her right eye." [Photo and text, New York Times.

You can watch a video of Long Pross who is Cambodian and was kidnapped and sold to a brothel here on the NYT site.

The article was written by two-time Pulitzer Prize Winner Nicholas D. Kristof, an Op-Ed columnist for The Times since November 2001. You can find Kristof's blog here.

New law on sex trafficking leads to more abuse

Or, as AFP more politely puts it in this story published on Christmas day: "Cambodia faces problems enforcing new sex trafficking law"

25 DEC 2008, PHNOM PENH (AFP):
The Cambodian government began prosecuting a new "Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" in February after years of pressure from the United States to clamp down on sex trafficking.

Since then, authorities have conducted brothel raids and street sweeps, but rights groups complain the new law has in many ways worsened the exploitation of women.

"The law allows police of all levels to arrest and punish sex workers," said Naly Pilorge, director of local human rights group Licadho.

"The sex workers are arrested to police stations and rehabilitation centres and then they are abused."

The reporter interviewed one prostitute, Chantha, who said there was nothing else she could do in Cambodia but become a prostitute.

"If you don't even have a dollar in your pocket to buy rice, how can you bear looking at your starving relatives?" she said.

"You do whatever to survive, until you start to realize the consequence of your deeds."

Chanta, in her early twenties, was working in a small red-light district west of the capital Phnom Penh several months ago when she was arrested under Cambodia's new sex-trafficking law.

Police nabbed her in a raid and charged her with publicly soliciting sex, fining her nearly two dollars. Then, Chanta claims, the arresting officers gang raped and beat her for six days in detention.

Bruises covered her body, but none of her assailants were brought to court, she said.

I once spoke to a young Cambodian prostitute who told me she'd rather die of AIDS tomorrow than of starvation today.

And a Merry Christmas to you too.

Free the Slaves!

In a previous post, I had quoted an observation by Dr Kevin Bales, described by Wikipedia as "the world's leading expert on modern slavery".

I was surprised and happy to receive an email from Dr Bales who pointed out an important fact: in absolute numbers there are more slaves now than ever, but in proportional terms, there are fewer slaves. What this means is that there are fewer people who are enslaved as a percentage of the total population on earth.

He also says the war against slavery can be won. He did not say in detail why in the email, but others have pointed out that slavery has intrinsic problems that make it unviable. Specifically, slavery is not as profitable as paid labour. Like so many things in life, slavery is about money. According to the economist Adam Smith, slavery was abolished by the British, French and Americans in 19th century, not because of the goodness of people, but because it was uneconomical: slaves would only work when closely supervised and owners had to use violence, or its threat, in order to get slaves to work. Capitalism is much a more more efficient system--wage earners have an incentive to work in the way that slaves did not.

It is an interesting topic and I think worth exploring. But for now, here is Dr Bales' email:

Hi Diana,

I tried to comment on your Cambodia Calling blog, but I wasn't able to ... so perhaps if I drop this to you in an email you'd like to add it?
All best
Kevin Bales

comment:

Thanks for a great posting. I understand how coming to grips with the size of modern slavery can leave people feeling overwhelmed. But there's an interesting paradox about the 27 million slaves in the world - yes, it is a huge number, the largest ever in human history, but it is also the smallest fraction of the human population to ever be in slavery. Likewise, the amount of money slaves pump into the world economy is big, around $50 billion a year, but it is also the smallest fraction of the global economy to ever be represented by slave labor.

The truth is that slavery has been pushed to the edge of its own extinction and working together we can tip it over the brink. I hope you'll visit and share our website www.freetheslaves.net, and maybe look at my book on how we can bring slavery to an end in 25 years, it is called: Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves.

All best wishes,
Kevin Bales
(President, Free the Slaves)

Dr. Kevin Bales' 1999 book Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and has been published in almost a dozen languages. He had written the book based on first-hand study in five different countries: Thailand (prostitution); Mauritania (water selling); Brazil (charcoal production); India (agriculture); and Pakistan (brick making).

Out of this book, Free the Slaves a not for profit organization actively trying to reduce, if not eradicate, slavery, which it powerfully describes as "a dark slash across the heart of all humanity".

He is optimistic we can wipe out slavery because the "the cost of actually helping people out of slavery is very low". To play a part, we can spread awareness and take action.

Please visit Dr Bales' organisation to see how you can help. There is also a Facebook group where you can share information on slavery and how to stop it.

There are more slaves now than any time in history

"There are now more slaves on the planet than at any time in human history. True abolition will elude us until we admit the massive scope of the problem, attack it in all its forms, and empower slaves to help free themselves."

From foreignpolicy.com. Article by E. Benjamin Skinnerm the author of A Crime So Monstrous: Face-to-Face with Modern-Day Slavery (New York: Free Press, 2008). Thanks to Pikon via reddit.

Highlights:

1. In Haiti, 600 miles from the United States, and five hours from Manhattan, Skinner successfully arranged to buy a human being for 50 bucks.

2. For every one woman or child enslaved in commercial sex, there are at least 15 men, women, and children enslaved in other fields, such as domestic work or agricultural labor.

3. Slavery scholar Kevin Bales estimates that a slave in the 19th-century American South had to work 20 years to recoup his or her purchase price. Gonoo (a slave in Uttar Pradesh in India) and the other slaves earn a profit for Garg (Gonoo's "owner" and one of the wealthiest men in town) in two years.

4. The seed of Gonoo’s slavery was a loan of 62 cents. In 1958, his grandfather borrowed that amount from the owner of a farm where he worked. Three generations and three slavemasters later, Gonoo’s family remains in bondage. The debts are illegal, a fiction that Garg constructs through fraud and maintains through violence.

5. The United Nations, whose founding principles call for it to fight bondage in all its forms, has done almost nothing to combat modern slavery. There is little to suggest the United Nations will be an effective tool in defeating the broader phenomenon.

6. What has helped are grassroots organisations such as:

(i) Uddar Pradesh, India: Pragati Gramodyog Sansthan (Progressive Institute for Village Enterprises, or PGS) which has helped the Kol form microcredit unions and won leases to quarries so that they could keep the proceeds of their labor.

(ii) India: MSEMVS (Society for Human Development and Women’s Empowerment). In 1996, MSEMVS launched free transitional schools, where children who had been enslaved learned skills and acquired enough literacy to move on to formal schooling. The group also targeted mothers, providing them with training and start-up materials for microenterprises.

(iii) Thailand: the Labour Rights Promotion Network which works to keep desperately poor Burmese immigrants from the clutches of traffickers by, among other things, setting up schools and health programs.

(iv) In the remote highlands in the southern Haiti: Limyè Lavi (“Light of Life”) whose activists reach otherwise wholly isolated rural communities to warn them of the dangers of traffickers and to help them organize informal schools to keep children near home.

And in Cambodia, there is Riverkids Project which works through education and skills training and Afesip which rescues trafficked sex workers through brothel raids and then rehabilitate the women.

Chinese companies--welcome to Singapore!

...Singapore--a home away from home for your business! In Singapore, it seems you can:

- Tear up contracts whenever you want!
- Arrest and intimidate troublemakers!
- Rule of law? A figment of the imagination! (or) A story we tell our children!
- A direct link to the Government Help Service via the Ministry of Cahoots!

Who killed Chea Vichea?

This is Chea Vichea, the leader of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC) until his assassination on Chinese New Year, 22 January 2004.

Vichea was shot in the head and chest. He had recently been dismissed by INSM Garment Factory in Phnom Penh for helping to establish a trade union at the company. He also had close affiliations with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party.

And these are Born Samnang and Sok Sam Oeun, the men whom Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch say have been wrongly convicted of the murder. The two men have alibis and say they were tortured into confessing to the crime. They were sentenced to 20 years in prison and had to compensate Chea Vichea's family $5000 each. The family turned down the compensation because they did not believe the men were the killers.

The first judge threw out the charges against the two men, citing a lack of evidence against them and weak credibility of the police investigation. The very next day, he was removed from his position at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, and his decision overturned.

Now there is a new documentary Who Killed Chea Vichea? You can watch a two minute trailer of the movie here.

The Eucalyptus in Cambodia

While walking to pay the electricity bill along National Road number 6, I came across this eucalyptus tree. I recognise it from its smooth bark and remember seeing koalas eat the leaves when in Australia. I was surprised because I thought it was a cold-weather tree. I guess Cambodia's dry season is cool enough for the eucalyptus.


I did a bit of research and found that Cambodia has plantations of eucalyptus trees. In 2000, Cambodia's Phea Phimex Group and China's Chinese Farm Corporation Group agreed to plant eucalyptus trees for the purposes of making a paper plant on concession land amounting to 300,000 hectares in Kompong Chhnang and Pursat provinces in Western Cambodia, reports Chinese newspaper the People's Daily. The companies have the concession for 70 years.

World Rainforest Movement recorded villagers' protests and preference to retain control of their land instead of relying on one crop and one company for livelihood. The article, by Chris Lang, gives a good overview of decades long attempts to develop a pulp and paper industry in Cambodia.

Lang's blog notes in June this year, Thailand's Siam Cement Group told The Bangkok Post that the company had started planting eucalyptus on pilot areas in Laos and Cambodia. “We are looking to secure raw-material supplies in the long term after there is no more area for eucalyptus in Thailand,” Poramate Lamroogroj, managing director of Siam Forestry Co., said.

Volunteer Scams in Cambodia

I have decided to write about the scam volunteer project after enough customers have told me about their bad experiences. The last one was a young woman in her early 20s from Canada who paid, get this, USD6000 (!) for a 6 weeks volunteer programme with an organisation here in Siem Reap.

[I want to name names but I am afraid of being murdered. It's not a joke. You can hire a hit man for USD100 (or so I was told, I did not enquire personally!) and when you are in the way of thousands of dollars, you can bet that it makes financial sense for a crook to pay a hundred bucks to get you out of the way.]

Anyway, so this poor woman found this organisation via a "Volunteer abroad!" website. There are many out there and I am writing this as a cautionary note for other travellers. There are too many entrepreneurs who set up NGOs, orphanages and the like in Cambodia, preying on the kindness and generosity of travellers who feel for this country and want to contribute.

In the case of this woman, the USD6000, which works out to USD1000 a week, was to cover all her living and food expenses. She arrived in Siem Reap to be put up in a room in the NGO house, where six other Cambodian men lived. She told me every evening the men would be drinking and gambling or watching TV. She felt so unsafe, she left after a week. She then checked into a hotel but had to cut short her trip as she had spent almost all her money after paying for the volunteer programme.

This other Canadian woman found an NGO while she was holidaying here in Siem Reap. She saw a notice in one of the more established cafes here and decided to join this particular NGO. Upon arrival, she was asked to pay USD50 as an "administrative fee". She was also asked to stay at the guesthouse run by the NGO and to use the tuk-tuk provided by the NGO.

This meant she would have to move from her USD5 a night guesthouse to a USD10 one, and she would have to pay USD12 every time she used the tuk-tuk. The NGO was out of town but this young woman decided she could cycle there instead of spending USD12 per trip. When she suggested this, she was told she could pay a cheaper price for the tuk-tuk. "Well, why wasn't I told this before I mentioned biking here?" she asked. Good question. Another good question is where did the USD50 admin fee go to?

USD50 is what your typical waitress in a restaurant gets for working 8 hours a day, 7 days a week, so you know USD50 can go some way in this country. All the NGO referred to here needs is 2 innocent victims a day and they bring in USD3000 a month. This excludes the money they get from their other revenue streams, like the guesthouse and restaurant.

As I have written many time, corruption in this country taints everything. The rule of law does not mean much here because the salaries of government officials here are pitiful (to give you an idea, a senior member of staff at the Foreign Affairs Ministry told me in 2006 that his monthly salary was USD40). So policemen and other men in uniform need to find other ways to make money.

It is a sad thing when innocent young people who want to help this country get fleeced and go away disappointed and betrayed.

I used to be upset with these people, whom I variously labelled as "dumb", "lazy" or "irresponsible", for not doing their homework, for not doing due diligence. I thought they should have exercised better judgement. But having met a number of such travellers now, I feel sorry for them. And I recognise how difficult it is to know the truth when you do not live here. For how many people have the time to investigate or even know where to begin to investigate?

I also think many young people are idealistic and want to believe in the good of people, which is why they easily believe when others tell them about the supposedly good work they are doing. Sadly there will always be bad people who will exploit this innocence and naivete.

So if you are planning to volunteer in Cambodia, please be aware that exploitation works both ways: it is not always the richer person who exploits the poorer ones; sometimes it can be the other way around.

Cambodian Sex Trade: "70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism"

I was interested to read today's news article by Al Jazeera on the child sex trade in Cambodia. I had pointed out in an earlier post "Sex trade in Cambodia, Childish Khmers and the Blame Game" (10 April 08) how local demand and the participation and complicity of local authorities is driving the sex industry in this country. But here are excerpts from Al Jazeera's report, which can be found in its entirety here: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/10/2008102110195471467.html

"Mu Sochua, a politician with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former minister for women's affairs, told Al Jazeera that most of Cambodia's sex industry was supported "by local customers".

"And some of these local customers are high-ranking officials. You have the military, the police and civil servants. you have rich businessmen who have lots of money," she said.

The involvement of high-ranking officials has been one reasons, NGOs say, that the sex industry has thrived in Cambodia.

"Very often these brothels and criminal networks are being supported and protected by high ranking officials," Mark Capaldi, from Ecpat International, an orgnaisation working to eliminate child prostitution, said.

"The problem is not just as abusers but also the impunity and lack of law enforcement in closing down these brothels and karaoke bars."

Daniela Reale, an advisor from Save the Children, told Al Jazeera: "The reality is that we do know local demand is the force driving this abuse.

"We also know it is around 70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism"....

...But while the arrest and conviction of foreigners make the headlines, most child sex trafficking supplies local demand, Mu Sochua said.

"It is easier to catch a foreigner and also the government wants to have showcases to make itself look good - that Cambodia is actually taking care of this problem of human trafficking, which is really not the truth," she told Al Jazeera.

Sweatshop comic

I received an email from artist Matt Bors a while ago in respond to my post about the Nike sweatshop found in Malaysia. Matt is a nationally syndicated editorial cartoonist living in Portland Oregon and has his own blog (with more great comics!). Visit Matt's blog for more great comics.

Cambodian sweatshop

My Australian friend and I visited a workshop in Phnom Penh last weekend. We were told about this place by a young Khmer woman who told us her parents worked there cutting pieces of cloth to be made into shirts that are sold in the Olympic Market. They are paid 100 riels (2.5 cents US) for each shirt they cut.

We could not believe it and asked to be taken there. The workshop is housed in a typical Khmer terrace house, a p'tyair l'wairng that has grilles all around its compound (this is typical in Cambodia because robbery is so common). It is near the Russian Market on a street that is nondescript and dead quiet (at least in the afternoon when we visited)--there is no way of telling the house is a sweatshop where young people from the provinces, all teenagers, work for USD25 a month--for up to 19 hours a day.

We entered the house and it was bright and airy. There was a Lexus parked in the driveway and framed photographs of the Khmer family that owns the house and the workshop adorned the walls. There were even certificates--one of which said "Certificate of attendance for Workshop on the WTO agreement".

Upstairs is where the workers work and sleep. They live and eat and shower with the Khmer family that owns the place. This family also owns a shop in the Olympic Market, where the shirts made by the workers are sold. The owners were not there when we visited and we met nine people, and except for the young woman's parents, the others were all teenage boys and girls. We asked what time they work and were told 5am to 12am. I could not believe it and asked again. I asked, "Why don't you go to bed at 10pm, how will your boss know?" They told me the boss sleeps at 8pm every night in the same house and when she wakes up in the middle of the night for a pee, she will kick and beat them if she finds any of them sleeping. The boss wakes up at 5am every day and gets them up to start work.

One of the girls was ironing the shirts with a traditional iron. It is not electric and is filled with coals and is extremely heavy. She looked like she was going to fall asleep and I kept thinking how dangerous it was if she fell asleep and burnt herself. She looked really, really miserable, and I said to my friend after that how such work is absolutely soul destroying. That girl made me think of the term "the living dead".

These kids end up in shitty jobs like these because they come from the provinces and don't know any better and cannot even get a job working in a garment factory because they don't have any experience. They get sent by their families who figure it is cheaper for them to have fewer mouths to feed. In this particular workshop, the workers have no holidays except 3 days each for Khmer New Year and Pchum Ben. That means they work 359 days out of 365 a year. My friend wondered aloud how they'd have time to go shopping, or to the dentist or do anything. It's simple--they don't.

The pajamas, office shirts etc this group makes are sold to Cambodians at the Olympic Market. These range from USD3-6 an item. You go do the maths and figure out how much this Cambodian couple is making at the expense of their fellow Cambodians. Obviously enough to own a house, a Lexus and dine at fancy restaurants.

What this family is doing is illegal, since Cambodian labour laws spell out a minimum wage of USD50 for a 48 hour work week. Overtime pay is 1.5 times the normal, and 2 times should you require workers to work on Sundays and public holidays. Although illegal, no one believes the police will do anything because the rich employers can pay them off. I believe such small exploitative private businesses are common.

I have discovered Cambodians are among the worst bosses and exploiters of their own people. There is a popular Khmer-owned restaurant on Pub Street here in Siem Reap that docks USD1 from staff's pay if they are even 3 minutes late. USD1 when the average pay is USD2 a day--why even bother to turn up if you're late, I wonder? This same restaurant cuts staff's monthly pay to make up a USD100 deposit, which will be returned to the worker when he or she works for at least a year with the restaurant. If not, he/she loses the deposit. Another Khmer-owned one on Pub Street pays its waitresses USD50 a month for 9 hours a day, 7 days a week. In fact I have just offered a young waitress at this pub a job at Bloom at double the wage because I think this particular young woman deserves better. Then there are the expat owned businesses, usually co-owned with a Khmer wife, that treat staff similarly.

This is why I think there is no way for Bloom to compete in Cambodia--we need to sell our bags overseas as well. Say I opened a pub on touristy Pub Street and paid my staff double what everyone else pays. My food and drinks prices will still have to remain competitive (USD3-5 for a meal and USD 0.75 for a mug of beer) in order to attract patrons. With the higher costs, how can I be as profitable as the other pubs on Pub Street? Of course I can't. Can I be even just a little bit profitable? Perhaps, but it will take patience and commitment, not to mention deep pockets.

Of course, some customers will support us if they were told the truth, but honestly, I believe most customers will not care. They just want to stretch their dollar while on holiday. They may even justify their patronage by telling themselves that USD50 is enough for a Cambodian to live on ("It must be, right? Since they do"--Well, yes they do, but it's literally living hand to mouth in cramped quarters). This is if customers even think about it. Most people don't. They go on holiday and they pay whatever prices they find.

How can we make more people understand and care? I don't know. I think about this all the time: Why do people not care more? I have come up with a few theories:

1. Most people think: I work hard for my money, and I want bargains so I will have more money left over to pay for my house, kids' education etc.

2. Most people have hard lives themselves, hard in the emotional sense, and think "Everyone has problems; I'm certainly not responsible for theirs (the Cambodians, Burmese, Haitians etc). I'm here on holiday, to relax; not to get stressed over human rights issues."

3. Most people do not want to feel ripped off, they want to pay fair prices and to them fair means what everyone else pays, what is market rate--even if market rate prices appear fair to the customer and the shop owner, but not fair to the worker.

4. Most people are so brain-dead from their dead-end and demoralising jobs, they don't think.

Anyway, if you have any ideas on how to change consumer behaviour or even to help me understand why people spend money the way they do, please do let me know. Tell me how you behave when you go into a shop. What do you think about and why?