Lisa Kristine photographs slavery

[n2doc]

by Meredith May
Updated 8:05 am, Saturday, January 5, 2013


Humanitarian photographer Lisa Kristine of Mill Valley had captured the dignity of indigenous people in 100 countries on six continents, yet never realized that modern-day slavery was in the shadows everywhere she traveled.

That all changed when Kristine, whose color-saturated photos are set to go on world tour this year, met an abolitionist while exhibiting her work at the 2009 Vancouver Peace Summit. The advocate told Kristine that 27 million people are enslaved worldwide - more than twice the estimated number of people taken from Africa during the Atlantic slave trade between the 16th and 19th centuries.

"I almost fell over," said Kristine, whose images hang in the Palace of Bhutan, have been auctioned at Christie's to benefit the United Nations, and have drawn accolades from the Dalai Lama. "It blew me away that I, whose whole job is to see, didn't know."

Within a week, she was in the Los Angeles offices of the advocacy group Free the Slaves, offering to use her 19th century, 4-by-5 camera to expose slavery: the impoverished children and adults given false promises of money, education and a better life, only to be tricked into indentured labor and held in captivity by fear, force and coercion.


Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/art/article/Lisa-Kristine-photographs-slavery-4167748.php

[polly7]

1. Terrible, awful stories ... powerful photography, kick. nt.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[Tsiyu]

3. Unbelievable portraits of shame

The shame of a world that allows this....

Americans - both the affluent and those who have seen their lives take an economic tumble - need to count their blessings, and remember how others are enslaved to produce many of the products we consume.

Thank you for posting these.

[fasttense]

4. The human cost of American capitalism.

That little girl at the top, has eyes like a 30 year old.

Are all those low, low prices worth these children's and adult's lives? Thanks Wal-Mart and "free traders".

[cantbeserious]

6. No Need For Sarcasm - The Ugly Truth Is Just That - Capitalism Is Killing Humanity And The Planet

eom

[ReRe]

8. Unregulated vulture capitalism =

Uncivilization & ruin. Without all the greed and deregulation, we could have saved the world and truly earned the title "the shining city on a hill."

[mckara]

10. Capitalism is Destroying Humanity and the Entire Planet!

When will humanity wake-up to the insanity of neoliberal/neoclassical economics?

[Nye Bevan]

13. Sorry, what do illegal gold mines in Ghana and kilns in Nepal have to do with Wal-Mart?

Are you suggesting that the horrible places mentioned in the article are Wal-Mart suppliers?

[me b zola]

5. K&R

[caledesi]

7. Good one! nt

[ReRe]

9. K&R

Thanks for posting this. I wonder if they even know that life could be different? If there is such a thing as reincarnation, I volunteer to change places with one of them.

[11 Bravo]

11. That first child's eyes are going to haunt me for a long time.

[Shanti Mama]

12. Familiar scenes to me, living in Nepal

I have become so politicized, so sensitive to friends who post on FB about frivolous spending, etc.
It's tough to live among this and not become an insufferable snob of sorts.
I'm doing my small part to try to make a difference.

[Agony]

14. "slavery, plain and simple" in the good old US of A.

http://www.ciw-online.org/slavery.html

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In one of the most recent case to be brought to court, a federal grand jury indicted six people in Immokalee on January 17th, 2008, for their part in what U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy called "slavery, plain and simple" (Ft. Myers News-Press, “Group accused of keeping, beating, stealing from Immokalee laborers,” 1/18/08). The employers were charged with beating workers who were unwilling to work or who attempted to leave their employ picking tomatoes, holding their workers in debt, and chaining and locking workers inside u-haul-style trucks as punishment ("How about a side order of human rights," Miami Herald, 12/16/07).

This case became the seventh such farm labor operation to be prosecuted for servitude in Florida -- involving well over 1,000 workers and more than a dozen employers -- in the past decade. Since then, the federal government initiated two more prosecutions, bringing the total to nine as of 2012. Here below is a list of the nine cases, in chronological order:

.
.
.
U.S. vs. Global Horizons -- In September 2010, staff of guestworker recruiting giant Global Horizons were charged with operating a forced labor ring active in 13 states, including Florida. Global Horizons CEO Mordechai Orian and six others were accused of holding six hundred guestworkers from Thailand against their will in what prosecutors called “the largest human trafficking case in US history.” FBI Special Agent Tom Simon described the case as “a classic bait-and-switch... They were telling the Thai workers one thing to lure them here. Then when they got here, their passports were taken away and they were held in forced servitude working in these farms.” Of the eight people originally indicted, three pled guilty; a Global Horizons manager pled guilty to conspiracy to violate the forced labor statute, and two field supervisors pled guilty to document servitude. A fourth defendant pled guilty in Thailand to recruitment fraud. In July 2012, the DOJ dropped the charges against CEO Orian and another Global Horizons executive.
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Agony