Denounce the Sale of Ethiopians into Modern Slavery T he Meles Zenawi regime has agreed to "export" 38,000 Ethiopians to Lebanon in accord with an agreement it had signed with Lebanon in February 2006. Delay in sending these on time has led to protest demonstrations by the involved agencies in Beirut. The agencies, eight in number, claim they have paid 37,000 dollars in Beirut and 25,000 dollars in Ethiopia to effect the accord.Previous statements by SOCEPP and other international human rights agencies had denounced this modern day slave trade as the young Ethiopians (of the 38,000 more than 30,000 are females) taken to the Middle east are mostly in their teens and are subjected to inhumane treatment that result more than often in their deaths. Young girls have been lured into prostitution, maids have been raped, beaten, disfigured, mutilated, denied their pay, they have seldom received protection from the law. In Lebanon and other Middle Eastern countries, the Ethiopians have been exposed to crude racism. The traffic benefits the agencies and middlemen and it is no secret, as in the case of the sale of children for adoption, traffickers linked to the regime are benefiting financially. It is because of all this that the "export" of Ethiopian youngsters to Lebanon had been stopped and a call made to stop the modern slave trade altogether. SOCEPP condemns the sale of Ethiopian youngsters into modern slavery and prostitution. SOCEPP |