“In other words… Slavery has not been completely abolished” – Dr Angela Davis, “Slavery and the Prison Industrial Complex.”

Davis, who grew up in the segregated southern city of Birmingham, Alabama, home of the 1963 terrorist bombings against the black community in which four little girls died, has dedicated her life to the struggle for social justice and civil rights, specifically within the black community in the USA. Her work on the abolition of the prison industrial complex, which has gained greater prominence following the 2016 Netflix documentary “13^th”, has spanned over five decades and includes more than ten books. In her work, Davis, who was imprisoned following time spent on the FBI’s most-wanted list in 1970 and was realised in 1972 after a global campaign for her freedom, explores the institution of prisons as an enterprise, and the corporations whose profits are rooted at the centre of mass incarceration.

The title of Ana DuVernay’s award-winning Netflix documentary takes its name from the 13^th Amendment. The political doctrine which was ratified in 1865 by congress and amended the American Constitution, ‘banning’ slavery, except, as the documentary highlights, as a punishment for crime.

Following the introduction of the 13^th Amendment, the ‘liberation’ of slaves left huge gaps in the American labour market. Work that had once been carried out by force, for free, was no longer being completed. Meaning former slave owners and heads of industries that once utilised slave labour needed another way to fill the void of labour following the ‘end’ of slavery. The 13^th Amendment provided a legal means through which this chasm could be bridged.

The introduction of the laws of the Jim Crow era in 1870 (which ran until 1965) meant that black people were to be racially segregated and could be arrested, en masse, for offences such as looking at a white woman, shaking hands with a white person or showing public affection to another black person. These laws ensured the continuation of white supremacy following slavery. Enabling prisoners to be declared ‘slaves of the state’; convict leasing allowed convicts to be ‘leased’ to private parties, such as plantation owners, mine owners and other corporations.

Labour as Penitence

Of course, if someone is convicted of a crime, they should be punished. But to what extent should this involve forced labour?

Not all crimes are worthy of the sentences inferred on them, if any, and with growing awareness of police violence towards (specifically) young black men in America, the systemic and disproportionate imprisonment of people of colour, means we can ascertain that the state of America’s criminal justice system doesn’t always protect those most vulnerable to its predatory laws.

American holds 25% of the world’s prisoners but just under 5% of the world’s population. In 1970, the prison population was 357,292. By 2014, the prison population was 2,306,200. Whilst one in 17 white men will serve time in prison, one in three African-American men will spend time behind bars and one out of four prisoners in the world, is imprisoned in the USA. This means more than half of all adult black women in America have at least one family member locked up.

Prisoners are forced to carry out labour to buy necessities, often at premium rates, such as clothing or shoes that fit (most prisoners can expect ‘one-size-for-all clothing and shoes upon arrival), soap (the cheapest soap is a 4-pack of Ivory for $3.50), toothpaste, phone-calls, pain-killers (a small packet of Aspirin is $1.50) or food. This factory-style labour can range from production lines for private companies, such as stitching $90 underwear for Victoria’s Secret, dealing with customer returns for Walmart or packaging coffee for Starbucks, earning as little as 23 cents to $1.15 per hour.

Fighting Fire with Fire

Not only are inmates being recruited to fight fires for a basic wage of around $2 a day plus $1 an hour, (compared to the average wage of a civilian firefighter in California coming in at $73,860 per year) they are also more likely to be injured whilst at work. During an active fire, inmates can be expected to work 24-hour shifts and given that more than 1,500 inmates received injuries so bad they required hospital treatment between June 2013 and August 2018, including being 8 times more likely to suffer smoke inhalation than civilians, the impact of this intensive work can have lasting impacts, long after their sentence has been served.

Beyond the health implications of working as an inmate firefighter, taking part in the programme doesn’t equate to opportunities for employment on the outside. With 65 million US adults holding a criminal record and 90% of employers carrying out criminal background checks, unemployment rates for former inmates soars to 27.3%, compared to 3.8% for the general public. With 4000 inmates working on the front line to tackle California’s wildfires last year, it’s inconceivable to think that after training for the position, these men won’t qualify for the same job once released.

Modern Slavery and America

The forced labour of America’s inmates, a disproportionate number of whom are people of colour (67%) – 94% of which are sentenced without trial – is so akin to the financial and state-protected infrastructure of slavery, that evaluations such as Dr.Davis’ are difficult to deny. Whether forcing humans to make up the production lines for designer outlets, filling up call centres with free labour for private corporations or allowing men to lose their lives fighting fires for less than the price of a bar of soap, the prison industrial complex and its ties to slave-era labour must be as Dr.Davis suggests “radically abolished” to make way for restorative justice and reconciliation that allows for true rehabilitation of offenders. A justice that allows for those most vulnerable in society to move access fair, unbiased and appropriate penance.

L'articolo The Inmate Firefighters Risking Their Lives For $1 An Hour proviene da InsideOver.

Type #teenmodel on Instagram’s search facility and you may find yourself suddenly aware of who is overlooking your screen. The hashtag count currently stands at 1.1 million images and whilst Instagram requires a user to be 13 years of age before they open an account, this is rarely upheld and virtually impossible to enforce. Many of these “teen” accounts claim to be “run by mum” –  therefore enabling account holders, whether ran by the parent or not – to get around the age restrictions by presenting that the content posted is vetted by a parent and that the mothers’ operate as managers of their child’s modelling “career.”

You may feel aware of who is around you, as this image feed is not something you may comfortably be caught scrolling through. From images of girls as young as 10 posing, laid down, in cutaway bikinis on a sunset beach, to 14 and 15 year old’s straddling motorbikes, legs spread apart, seductively eating ice cream whilst staring straight at the camera; the feed makes for an unsettling portrayal of what the term “teen” has become interpreted as in today’s society.

One comment from a user named “lust_4_life” – who’s profile photo suggests he’s a middle-aged man – under the photo of a Polish teen, posing with her leg wrapped around a door in tiny hot pants reads: “very… beautiful” accompanied by a fire and heart-eyed emoji.

In another post, a hot pant clad, belly top wearing teen sits sprawled across some steps, her high heels at the end of her long tanned legs, are perched on the lower step, her legs parting with hot pants just short enough to show the underside of her bottom between her thighs, the photo caption: “Dear Autumn, bite me” with a devil emoji. The top comment, three fire emojis along with “great photo, nice pair of legs!” from another seemingly middle-aged male, this time wearing a suit in his profile photo, has been responded to by the model with “thanks!” and a heart emoji. Other comments on the photo include excessive use of the water drop, hearts and fire emojis as well as many comments relating to the teenager’s legs. The teen model has tagged the photo with #teenlegs #teenbody and other searchable hashtags based solely on her age and body parts.

Her Instagram feed with over 6000 followers (a modest number as some accounts boast upwards of 100K followers) is a collection of photos posing in bikinis by the pool, wearing hot pants on car bonnets and other poses often used by glamour models. Her age isn’t disclosed but it would be difficult to suggest she is more than 15 years of age, judging by her photos posted wearing a school uniform. Further scrolling and the highly sexualised comments become more regular; “soooo sexy”, “body so tight” and “I want to spoil a baby girl” are posted by men under images of endless children, sometimes as young as 11.

On occasion, highly sexualised comments are responded to with warnings from the pages posting the images but more often than not, positive responses and engagement can be found. From replies to overtly sexual requests with heart emojis, to likes on comments depicting fantasies and favourite body parts, the page owners, be it teens or their mothers, seem not to harbour much concern over the general intent of their avid followers. The hashtags can be broken into further sub-categories based on age, with #childmodel #youngteen #teenbody and the more concerning, #teengirlbooty, #teengirlfeet and #girlmodelbody all returning a considerable number of results.

The fetishization of young women and girls has been at the forefront of news coverage recently, following the arrest, trial and eventual suicide of billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, who hosted the world’s elite, including Donald Trump, Prince Andrew and Bill Clinton at his private island. Where parties involving the alleged “recruitment” of underage girls to perform “massages” for older men were the norm.

In 2015, the now-bankrupt brand American Apparel was forced to remove adverts that sexualised children as part of their “back to school” campaign. In July 2019, Instagram banned 19-year-old Belle Delphine’s account after she posed in her child-like bedroom in highly sexualised positions and offered her followers the chance to access more ‘lewd content’ via her Patreon account. At the time of writing, her account has been reinstated and she boasts 203K followers and a fan page of 98K. Her videos include shots taken between her legs in threadbare underwear, wearing a cropped school uniform on her upper body.

Discussing the world of porn or even sexual fetishes in the public realm is often met with resilience, or at the very least silence; the subject matter remaining taboo for most. However, author Jon Ronson’s podcast series, The Butterfly Effect, explores the porn industry and particularly, the polarisation of the age of models being hired by producers, based on the requirement for search engine optimized porn video titles. A video that may at one time have been titled something broadly erotic, before the internet dominated the porn industry, would now need to include at least one (and ideally more) of the in-demand ‘genres’, ie. ‘milf’ or ‘teen’. This leads to Ronson to find himself on the set of the not-so-nuanced, ‘Stepdaughter Cheerleader Orgy.’

Whilst the title of the film may at first appear absurdist, funny even, the trickle-down effect of the normalisation of  ‘teen’ porn enables these accounts to go unvetted and uncensored, freely populating the news feeds of societies most feared criminals with exactly the content that would lead to their arrest. No longer a reserve for the ‘dark web’,  paedophiles are accessing a near-constant supply of images, enabled by one of the largest corporations on earth.

L'articolo The Chilling World of Instagram’s Child Sex Models proviene da InsideOver.

Princesses locked in towers by tyrannical fathers with no way of reaching the outside world may appear to be makings of fairy tales, but for princesses of the Gulf States of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates (UAE), this is all too commonly a reality. Far from waiting longingly for Prince Charming to save them from their sorry state, these women are being imprisoned, tortured, abducted and executed for trying to flee from the dictatorships of their own families and their prophesized lineage. 

Described by missing UAE Princess of Dubai, Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum, as living life in a gilded cage, the daughters of some of the world’s richest and most powerful men are brought up in lives of luxury, from skiing trips and tropical holidays, to lavish shopping sprees and designer goods. The illusion of the seemingly free, opulent lives they lead ends abruptly once the women, often very well educated, reach their teenage years. At the age most young women are experiencing their first taste of independence, marriages are being arranged, and autonomy withdrawn for these daughters of royalty. 

In a chilling video declaration made by Sheikha Latifa bint Mohammed al-Maktoum before her infiltrated escape attempt, Latifa mentions her 30 siblings, including three full siblings and two half-sisters with the same name. Her older full sister, Shamsa, she claims, lives “drugged and monitored, day and night” in their palace, following her own bid for freedom, which resulted in her capture in Cambridge, UK in 2000. Shamsa has not been seen in public since, and Latifa and her siblings, the children of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Prime Minister of the UAE, live a “very restricted life” in which their every action is reported back to their father’s office via their drivers and staff. 

“I hope this video gets deleted and we’re all okay,” states Latifa towards the end of the 40-minute long video. “My father is the worst criminal you can ever imagine in your life. He doesn’t care. They’re not going to take me back alive.” 

Latifa claims she previously tried to escape in 2000, before she had access to the internet, but was captured at the border and spent three years and four months in prison. Whilst this can’t be verified, her accounts of torture whilst in prison, including being exposed to or withdrawn from light for days on end, and being starved and beaten, correlate with others who have suffered a similar fate at the hands of the UAE regime. 

Ending the video, seemingly filmed by herself, Latifa calls her father a “pathetic, pathetic human who doesn’t scare me” and assures that her escape attempt, which has been two decades in the making, will either end with her freedom or her “not making it out alive”. Either way, she says, the video will go some way to tell her story and the story of her sister. 

Latifa hasn’t been seen since, apart from appearing in three low-resolution images, which were released in December 2018, showing Latifa sat beside former Irish President Mary Robinson in a meeting allegedly arranged by one of her father’s wives, Princess Haya. Her family claim she is ‘troubled’ and ‘mentally unwell’ – a message reiterated by Mary Robinson, following her meeting with Latifa, which received outcry from Human Rights groups.

Despite her alleged involvement in arranging the meeting with Mary Robinson to portray Latifa as safe and content in the media, Princess Haya, the sixth wife of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, has now also fled the UAE regime, after it emerged on 3rd June 2019 that she was seeking asylum in London, England. According to a BBC report, Princess Haya, 45 – who married the Sheikh, 69, in 2004, becoming his “junior wife” – initially fled to Germany to seek asylum, but has been staying in their London mansion whilst preparing for a legal battle at the high court in the UK. The Princess is thought to have “uncovered disturbing facts” about Princess Latifa’s return, and has fled her husband for fear of her life. 

Tiina Jauhiainen, Latifa’s close friend and personal trainer, helped plan her escape, and fled Dubai with her, travelling by jetski to a yacht which awaited them to travel to India before its interception by Indian commando forces. Speaking to InsideOver, she urged readers to post under the hashtag #FreeLatifa and to visit their website, which aims to raise awareness of the Princess’ capture. “There is a petition on the website which readers can sign and share to join in the campaign for Latifa’s freedom,” Tiina added. “Readers can also follow and support the campaign on social media, where we post updates on Latifa’s capture.” 

Haya, Latifa and Shamsa aren’t the only women to suffer at the hands of their elite families; Princess Mishaal bint Fahd al Saud, daughter of Fahd bin Muhammed bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, a former governor of Saudi Arabia was executed on her grandfather’s orders at the age of 19 in 1977, for engaging in a relationship with Khaled al-Sha’er Mulhallal, then Saudi ambassador in Lebanon, who was beheaded by one of the Princesses male relatives after Mishaal’s execution. 

Princess Alanoud Al Fayez was married to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at the age of 15. She escaped in 2001, after the King had divorced her for only having daughters, and seized the passports of her three daughters without her knowing. She fled to London where she was granted asylum. 

On April 11 2017, Dina Ali Lasloom, also of Saudi Arabia, was captured and detained at Manila Airport in the Philippines, after trying to reach Australia to seek asylum. She posted a video on Twitter claiming that she would be killed upon her return to Saudi. She has not been seen since, and is believed to be in a Saudi women’s prison, released to male guardians, or deceased.

L'articolo The Gulf State’s Missing Princess proviene da InsideOver.

The beauty industry is no stranger to moral debate, from animal testing and plastic pollution, to the perpetuation of unachievable standards; campaigns have been fought and won, and the ever-changing face of beauty has been forced to adapt to escape its ugly depths. Whilst consumers are becoming ever more conscious of their purchasing power and the impact their choices make on sustainability, the beauty industry continues to find new ways to exploit those who benefit the least – yet are the most vulnerable to its ethical bypassing.

Mica, the shimmery, flaky component that adds a sparkly texture to lipstick and eyeshadow created by brands like L’Oreal, who own, Maybelline, Urban Decay, Essie and NYX, is mined predominantly in North Eastern India, in the states of Jharkhand and Bihar. A recent study by Terre des Hommes at The Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations (SOMO) in the Netherlands exposed the illegal mines operating across India where children are used and exploited. Often being forced to work in mines from the age of five and earning (at the upper end of the wage bracket) an average of 20 rupees (22p) per day. The mines are illegal following India’s banning of mica mining in 2017 and whilst the ban, an attempt to bring an end to the forced (mostly child) labour involved in mica mining, has drawn attention to the issue around the globe, much of the industry now operates illegal with no vetting or oversight from a governing body.

The mica mine shafts and tunnels can be as narrow as a rabbit hole in places, meaning children are required to gain access to the tightest areas of the mines. With ice picks or hammers, baskets and no physical protection, the children can spend all day, from sun rise to sun set, in the mines during the dry season. India currently provides 60% of global mica supply and for the impoverished North Eastern region, this offers a gainful income for many of the villages surrounding the mines. With mica mining, the deeper the depth of the mine, the larger the mica fragments that can be retrieved, consequently, the deeper the mine the higher the chances are of the tunnels collapsing and trapping or crushing the children working within them.

L’Oreal state in their Sustainable Policy on Mica Sourcing that they only use “verified and gated mines” and stress they are “committed to remain in India and ensure the traceability and transparency of its supply chain.” And following outcry over their use of untraced mica, Lush, a brand synonymous with welfare and rights, pulled out of India and now use only lab made shimmer.

Regardless of these sustainability measures, many mica mining communities remain entirely dependent on unregulated mines as their primary source of income. The Terre des Hommes report warns against a quick departure from mica mining countries following association with illegal mines, as this risks and encourages increased illegality within trade and further isolates miners. The report suggests companies with ties to forced, illegal or child mining should stay in the countries in which they currently operate and develop policies to protect miners and safeguard their rights.

A 2016 report by Reuters revealed that the traders who control the mines have been covering up deaths of children occurring during excavations, meaning families are being left without any opportunity to cremate their children – as many bodies are disposed of on site. Additionally, (supposedly) promised compensation payments of between 30,000 to 100,000 rupees (£320 – £1000) for the loss of a child are frequently missed or forgotten, leaving families not only without their loved ones but bereft of a sustainable source of income.

Currently and alarmingly, there are no assured standards for ethically sourced beauty products in the way there are for animal protection. The Leaping Bunny emblem, which can be seen on products cleared of animal testing or cruelty, does not exist in a human equivalent. And whilst many brands have implemented policies outlining their commitment to sustainably sourced mica, the industry remains largely unregulated. This, despite efforts by NGO’s and charities both in India and internationally, to put pressure on brands to safeguard the child victims of the mica trade and to offer viable sources of income for the communities most reliant on this precarious livelihood.

L'articolo The Slaves of the Make-Up Industry proviene da InsideOver.