Mistreatment and abuse need to be addressed

There are different situations in which we can talk about modern-day slavery but it mainly involves someone being forced to work against their will – if somebody is in need and is forced to be the breadwinner for the family and work on low wages or forced to sell their labour in the market. Nowadays, we do not consider that as slavery, but it is. We can also take examples of human trafficking, prostitution or even legal migrant labour. These are typical examples of modern-day slavery.

Even with domestic workers, if one has drawn a contract and ensures the worker gets his dues properly and is treated humanely, it is fine, but most workers are not. So, domestic workers might not get their wages on time and sometimes they might get paid less than what is due to them because of a retaliation against some kind of bad behaviour or because they are being mistreated.

You need to make arrangements through which a person can complain if the contract is not respected or if there is abuse of people. Moreover, we need people to be aware and humane, and for them to realise that it is a problem which many people face. We are not compassionate and humane in our treatment and in our interaction with people. We tend to overlook and think that since we are paying them, we can do whatever we would like. This is inhuman and while there are laws for it, laws alone will not suffice. We need people to be educated and humane because the most important intrinsic factors in these cases are education and values.

From Dr Layachi Anser Professor of Sociology at University of Sharjah