slave labor news stories on Newser

Cops Raid 'Slave' Camp, Free Men Held 15 Years

Mark Russell — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 08:52:05 CDT

Four men and a woman were arrested yesterday for holding 24 men as slaves in east England, some for as long as 15 years, reports the BBC . The victims—English, Polish, and Romanian men—were likely recruited from soup kitchens and welfare offices and promised jobs that paid around $125...

Pyramids Not Built by Slaves: Scientists

M. Morris — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 16:55:00 CST

The Great Pyramids of Egypt were built not by slaves, as is commonly believed, but by free workers of such high status that their tombs lie near the king's. The laborers built the Khufu and Khafre pyramids, and the research made public today sheds new light on graffiti describing the...

Aussies Sorry for 10K Kids Shipped for 'Slave Labor'

Jason Farago — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 06:20:01 CDT

The Australian prime minister will apologize to generations of British migrants shipped to Australia as children and subjected to abuse, hunger, and slave labor. Between the 1920s and 1960s the UK sent about 10,000 children to provide Australia with "good white stock," but when they arrived they were put...

Brazil Rescues 4,600 Slaves in 2008

Neal Colgrass — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 19:24:21 CST

Brazil freed more than 4,600 slaves this year after storming a record number of remote farms, the Guardian reports. Often teaming up with federal police, the government's anti-slavery task force raided 255 farms, but advocates say thousands of poor are still being trapped into debt slavery. "It is a...

How the Middle Class Was Systematically Betrayed

Jonas Oransky — Wed, 14 May 2008 13:10:00 CDT

Thomas Frank tackles the decline of the American middle class in an outraged op ed piece in today's Wall Street Journal. He confesses fascination with "the mechanics of this huge social reconfiguration," which has, over several decades, shunted the nation's wealth into fewer and fewer hands, until the top 1%...

Child Slavery Scandal Blows Up in China

Caroline Zimmerman — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 11:39:09 CDT

A child labor scandal is rocking rural China as information surfaces on kidnapped children forced to work as slaves in the country's brick factories. In crackdowns this week, nearly 50,000 police in two Chinese provinces have rescued 550 people, including dozens of the thousands of children believed to be...