Real Sports on HBO is doing a story on trafficking of children for use as camel jockeys.
The show documented the conditions the children live under: starved and sleep-deprived to keep their weight down, forced to serve the trainers, branded, beaten, and hung from chains for punishment. Here's a site on the topic.
quote:"In the Middle East, young children's lives are put at risk for the entertainment of thousands of spectators at camel races. Children as young as six are trafficked from Asia or Africa to supply the demand for child jockeys. The camels are valuable assets, worth millions of dollars. The children are viewed as cheap and expendable.
"Following the deaths of many boys, from falls or being trampled, ASI mounted a successful campaign and the United Arab Emirates banned the practice. However, in 1997, newspapers reported the death in a race of another 10-year-old boy from Bangladesh. Children are still exploited to train the camels, and new trafficking routes have opened up from Africa."
I'm seldom surprised by the cruelties people subject children to, and unfortunately this isn't the worse thing that happens to them.
Dagonee
Posted by Fyfe (Member # 937) on :
That is so bizarre. And horrible. People are
Not going to finish that sentence. I'm all disgusted today.
Jen
Posted by Synesthesia (Member # 4774) on :
*shakes head* Just when I think I have heard enough terrible things people do... I hear something else Posted by Shigosei (Member # 3831) on :
Cheap and expendable?? Posted by Raia (Member # 4700) on :
That's disgusting.
On a side note, my little sister was almost run over by a camel last summer.
Sorry, that was kind of random.
Posted by Sopwith (Member # 4640) on :
Folks, it is just the tip of the iceberg in the Middle East. Slavery still exists there and it is huge.
Posted by Dagonee (Member # 5818) on :
I know, Sopwith, but I've always found concrete examples far more compelling than numbers or general descriptions.
Kudos to Bryant Gumbel for dealing with this on his sports show. If you get a chance to check it out, it's very well done.
Dagonee
Posted by quidscribis (Member # 5124) on :
A friend of mine - tall, blonde, good looking female - was in Egypt about 15 years ago - vacation with a tour group. She was kidnapped and her kidnappers were going to sell her into slavery. Somehow she was rescued. Not sure exactly how - she didn't like talking about it.
It's not just children, either.
Posted by Hobbes (Member # 433) on :
Some people are just plain pathetic.
"Ohh I got it Jim! We'll ditch the apartment and go and find a life of glamour and glitz."
"How are we going to pay for that Bob?"
"Hmmm, maybe we can just sell our souls to the devil and traffic in pain, misery and raffle off other's freedom like so much wheat."
![[Frown]](frown.gif)
![[Mad]](mad.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)