On December 4th 2009, police in Mexico City raided a factory hidden inside a building posing as a rehabilitation center known as the “Institute for Rehabilitation of Alcoholism and Drug Addiction”. Over 100 Mexicans had been kidnapped and enslaved there – working 18 hour or longer days without pay. Even more disturbing than the fact that these people (as young as age 14) were malnourished and suffered from severe physical abuse is that city police were aware of the situation but bribed by the kidnappers not to act
Human rights activists believe the Mexican police knew about the abductions since June, but considered it to have a POSITIVE effect on the city because it was “a way of cleaning vagrants off the streets”. Such roundups are not uncommon to the area as part of what they call a “social cleansing” campaign.
Slavery and human trafficking are not merely aspects of the past. People in North America are right now being denied basic human rights without any recourse from local authorities. How corrupt could police possibly be to allow this to go on for more than 6 months?! Because those who were taken are mostly poor and homeless, they’re completely powerless in seeking help. The fact that kidnapping was seen as a benevolent act of “social cleansing” is absolutely sickening. This is eugenics – the same ideas that lead to genocide in Germany during the Holocaust, Rwanda, Cambodia, Bosnia, etc. If people continue to hold these prejudicial beliefs, deny entire groups of their basic civil liberties, and no one in charge makes any effort to prevent it, slavery will always exist.
What is the point of law enforcement if they only reinforce what those in power want?
- Laura Campion
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