Softened hearts against exploitation

World Day Against Trafficking in Persons on 30 July sounds like something for specialists. However, each of us benefits invisibly from labour trafficking, which is defined as the use of force, fraud, or coercion to transport people and obtain cheap labour from them – practices that are rampant worldwide.

Extracting maximum work at minimum expense is a phenomenon that began as soon as one person began working for another who had more power over resources such as land. Over time, inequalities developed between people who were otherwise equal by birth. Inequality in practice was gradually twisted into inequality in principle. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, wrote that slavery was natural and that human beings came in two types – slaves and non-slaves, with the former needing the latter to run their lives. In India, a similar mindset had long crystallised into the jaati or caste system with spiritual trappings added unlike anywhere else in the world.

In the Bible, the chapter that follows immediately after the exposition of the Ten Commandments begins with the treatment of slaves. Of the Commandments, only the first three are religious. The fourth, even if couched in religious language, goes straight into labour rights – a Sabbath day of rest for all including workers. The Bible is then replete with verses such as: “Do not take advantage of workers, whether one of your own or one of the migrant labourers who is in your land. You shall give them their wages on the day, for they set their hearts on it; so that they will not cry against you to the Lord and it become sin in you.”

The earliest description by Jesus of his upcoming work was: “The Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor, to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free.” Jesus’s good news of salvation through his sacrifice needs a heart transformation to accept (in fact, no one is born a Christian; rather, every person needs a tender heart-conversion), and that repentant humaneness is the basis for a society that confronts oppression. The Bible goes on to condemn slave trade (human trafficking), which was banned centuries later. We, too, resist slavery every time we ensure a minimum wage for the most vulnerable.