Output details

Slavery : A 21st Century Evil

Slavery: A 21st Century Evil (producer, director, writer, cinematographer) adopted a conventional documentary method of reportage to detail the variety of forms of modern slavery. The three films I made for the series, broadcast internationally by Al Jazeera, about child slavery in Haiti, bride trafficking in India and bonded slavery in Pakistan, were produced via a form of participant-observational research in the field. The specific situations I observed and explored shared some common themes: official denials that slavery exists; rationalisations of slavery by appeal to national or cultural traditions; and national laws prohibiting slavery. My research revealed that slavery is not coterminous with “trafficking” (as defined internationally by the UN as the forced movement of people over national borders); and that it is more than merely a variant of unfree labour. It also show how slavery – the idea of ownership of one individual by others – has many cultural overlays. In Pakistan it has to do with religion, caste status and customs such as dowry. Many bonded labourers – and most of them in the most populous province of Punjab – are Christians and most Christians in Pakistan are former dalits, or “untouchables". Another problem with considering slavery merely as a variant of unfree labour is that other forms of exploitation impact upon slaves in a quite particular way. My film in Pakistan interviews bonded slaves who have been victims of organ trafficking – their kidneys and other organs removed on the false promise of relief from debt. Although covert filming techniques were deployed in other films in the series, I decided against this tactic – not least because, in India and Haiti, slave owners and traders were drawn from the same communities as the victims. The series was nominated for an International Documentary Association Award in 2012.