Maids for Sale: Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market - BBC News

[timosman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qxz-vmbFXd4

Nov 1, 2019

BBC News Arabic’s undercover investigation exposes app users in Kuwait breaking local and international laws on modern slavery, including a woman offering a child for sale. The discovery of Fatou in Kuwait City, her rescue and journey back home to Guinea, West Africa, is at the heart of this powerful and shocking investigation into Silicon Valley’s Online Slave Market.

[Bern]

I have done consulting work in Saudi Arabia. Probably spent a cumulative total of three months or so over there. I remember local news reporting occasionally about domestic workers (maids) being abused/mistreated. They are completely powerless. Slaves is an apt description. They are all foreigners (dirt poor Indians, etc.) who come for work, but their passports are confiscated and they really have no means to defend themselves against any abuse. They really live at the mercy of their employers.

[tod evans]

I'll clean my own house.

Thanks anyway.

[Danke]

I'll clean my own house.

Thanks anyway.

Are you available? My place is a mess.

[Brian4Liberty]

Why wouldn’t Apple and Google allow these apps to sell workers? It the same business model they have used to import workers.

[oyarde]

I am not selling my maid . If anything happened that she would expire before I then I too would just clean my own house .

[juleswin]

Growing up in Nigeria, just about every family in the city had maids. Rich, middle class, poor. As long as you can feed an extra mouth and pay some money to the senders family you can get yourself one. We never had day care or nanny. Your nanny was the maid.

It's really complicated to explain to someone who has never experienced this but it is not slavery. The system can be abused by abusive people. But most people reciever and sender supports this arrangement.

The sendee family lend out a child they cannot feed or sponsor to go to school and the receiving family get a child which they are supposed to feed, shelter and train ins some profession(regular school or trade school). You have to understand that these people take care of your infants, prep your meals, stay in your home when u go on holidays. So they can f*ck your shyte up easily if you mistreat them.

[tod evans]

Are you available? My place is a mess.

Absolutely!

Sign the deed over and make it my place and I'll clean the hell out of it....

[timosman]

Growing up in Nigeria, just about every family in the city had maids. Rich, middle class, poor. As long as you can feed an extra mouth and pay some money to the senders family you can get yourself one. We never had day care or nanny. Your nanny was the maid.

It's really complicated to explain to someone who has never experienced this but it is not slavery. The system can be abused by abusive people. But most people reciever and sender supports this arrangement.

The senders family get a child they cannot feed or sponsor to go to school food and sponsorship to school or trade school and the reciever gets labour from the trade. You have to understand that these people take care of your infants, prep your meals, stay in your home when u go on holidays. So they can f*co your shyte up easily if you mistreat them.

Thank you for your input but this is not how it works in the first world countries. We have government who sponsors everything without anybody having to do any work.

[bv3]

Growing up in Nigeria, just about every family in the city had maids. Rich, middle class, poor. As long as you can feed an extra mouth and pay some money to the senders family you can get yourself one. We never had day care or nanny. Your nanny was the maid.

It's really complicated to explain to someone who has never experienced this but it is not slavery. The system can be abused by abusive people. But most people reciever and sender supports this arrangement.

The senders family get a child they cannot feed or sponsor to go to school food and sponsorship to school or trade school and the reciever gets labour from the trade. You have to understand that these people take care of your infants, prep your meals, stay in your home when u go on holidays. So they can f*co your shyte up easily if you mistreat them.

That's cool. Nigeria has its own norms, good on Nigeria! They don't belong here. The words you use are telling: "pay some money to the senders family." Oh, and why would that money go to the "senders" family? "Senders" is one hell of a euphemism. Pay some money to the trafficker...

[oyarde]

Absolutely!

Sign the deed over and make it my place and I'll clean the hell out of it....

You may want something a little better .

[tod evans]

You may want something a little better .

It's undoubtedly in a city so once I clean it up I'll sell it.

[nikcers]

Growing up in Nigeria, just about every family in the city had maids. Rich, middle class, poor. As long as you can feed an extra mouth and pay some money to the senders family you can get yourself one. We never had day care or nanny. Your nanny was the maid.

It's really complicated to explain to someone who has never experienced this but it is not slavery. The system can be abused by abusive people. But most people reciever and sender supports this arrangement.

The senders family get a child they cannot feed or sponsor to go to school food and sponsorship to school or trade school and the reciever gets labour from the trade. You have to understand that these people take care of your infants, prep your meals, stay in your home when u go on holidays. So they can f*co your shyte up easily if you mistreat them.

This is just slavery by other means. They aren't getting paid wages and when they do it gets sent back to their home country. They have no freedom of movement and no citizenship or legal protection. Its not even indentured servitude because they aren't working off debt to the employer or paying off the cost of immigration to the country. Its stolen labor.

[JohnCifelli1]

There's just one party missing from the decision making here....

[juleswin]

This is just slavery by other means. They aren't getting paid wages and when they do it gets sent back to their home country. They have no freedom of movement and no citizenship or legal protection. Its not even indentured servitude because they aren't working off debt to the employer or paying off the cost of immigration to the country. Its stolen labor.

That is people abuse the system shouldn't be an indictment against the whole idea of it. The way it works in Nigeria is that their labour is exchanged for food, shelter, healthcare and some education or trade skills. The first 3 maids we had all went to high school. 1 went to university and came out with an accountant degree. The other 2 did sewing and trade and both work for my parents now. The accountant actually came to the US with us for vacation. She was able to visit Disney world. Something she could not have done without the arrangement.

All 3 were able to improve their lot in life because of the arrangement and were able to do much much better than their parents did.

[Danke]

That is people abuse the system shouldn't be an indictment against the whole idea of it. The way it works in Nigeria is that their labour is exchanged for food, shelter, healthcare and some education or trade skills. The first 3 maids we had all went to high school. 1 went to university and came out with an accountant degree. The other 2 did sewing and trade and both work for my parents now. The accountant actually came to the US with us for vacation. She was able to visit Disney world. Something she could not have done without the arrangement.

All 3 were able to improve their lot in life because of the arrangement and were able to do much much better than their parents did.

Your maids were from the same country and race/culture?

I think we are talking about Arabs here with foreign maids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Affair

[nikcers]

That is people abuse the system shouldn't be an indictment against the whole idea of it. The way it works in Nigeria is that their labour is exchanged for food, shelter, healthcare and some education or trade skills. The first 3 maids we had all went to high school. 1 went to university and came out with an accountant degree. The other 2 did sewing and trade and both work for my parents now. The accountant actually came to the US with us for vacation. She was able to visit Disney world. Something she could not have done without the arrangement.

All 3 were able to improve their lot in life because of the arrangement and were able to do much much better than their parents did.

Yes if the system is abused or abusable its an indictment of the whole of it. When you pay someone to steal someone else's labor it is theft. -Ron Paul, probably

[juleswin]

Yes if the system is abused or abusable its an indictment of the whole of it. When you pay someone to steal someone else's labor it is theft. -Ron Paul, probably

Life is cruel. You live in a world where there is no welfare, children will go hungry and starve if their parents do not have money to feed them. In this world, some children will be for pushed to grow up really fast. There is a lot of pressure on the maids to help the family out but ultimately they don't have to stay. The doors are rarely locked like the story in the OP and maids do go AWOL every now and them.

The trade is food, healthcare, education, shelter etc. They get something for their labour just not in the form of money.

[nikcers]

Your maids were from the same country and race/culture?

I think we are talking about Arabs here with foreign maids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Affair

China does this with North Koreans as well. There is a black market and a legal market for NK slaves in China

[Danke]

China does this with North Koreans as well. There is a black market and a legal market for NK slaves in China

I'll have to look into that as Tod wants too much.

[juleswin]

Your maids were from the same country and race/culture?

I think we are talking about Arabs here with foreign maids.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_Affair

Yep, same tribe, everything. Yea, but people have abused this system. There is a story about some Nigerian Nurse in Texas that was arrested for imprisoning her maid.

I remembera story when I was little of a family that refused to feed their maids. There are people who abuse this system.

[nikcers]

Life is cruel. You live in a world where there is no welfare, children will go hungry and starve if their parents do not have money to feed them. In this world, some children will be for pushed to grow up really fast. There is a lot of pressure on the maids to help the family out but ultimately they don't have to stay. The doors are rarely locked like the story in the OP and maids do go AWOL every now and them.

The trade is food, healthcare, education, shelter etc. They get something for their labour just not in the form of money.

Some chains aren't physical. It's forced labor, when you can't say no and there are no legal protections and you are a human working for nothing or less value than other humans can trade their labor of equal value for its not a trade. When you are trading with someone your labor for fair market value that is work. When you are marketed to people for less than market costs of labor by force that is slavery.

[Danke]

Yep, same tribe, everything. Yea, but people have abused this system. There is a story about some Nigerian Nurse in Texas that was arrested for imprisoning her maid.

I remembera story when I was little of a family that refused to feed their maids. There are people who abuse this system.

Same tribe in same country, I would think there is more social and legal pressure against such abuse.