40 million slaves — enough to fill every NFL stadium 20 times: IJM
Former Obama prosecutor defends American companies from child slavery charges
More people toil in slavery around the world than most Americans realize as there are currently 40 million people enslaved, enough to fill every NFL stadium 20 times, according to International Justice Mission.
“Every day, countless people are trafficked into slavery, as slave owners make a profit off their vulnerability,” IJM National Director of Church Mobilization Katelyn Curran told The Christian Post. “People in poverty are uniquely vulnerable to this violence because while their wealthier neighbors can pay for security and safety, they cannot. Force, fraud and coercion are key ways traffickers trick and lure those in poverty into false debt and bonded labor.”
Slavers kidnap the vulnerable from lawless places and force them to work for free, she said. Most victims are women and children. According to data from the Global Slavery Index, slavery is most prevalent in Africa, the Middle East and central Asia.
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Human trafficking and slavery steal $150 billion a year in profits, second only to the drug trade in criminal money earned, according to Curran.
In December, the U.S. Supreme Court heard the case of six Mali citizens who sued chocolate companies Nestlé USA Inc. and Cargill Inc. for aiding and abetting child slavery. Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general under former President Barack Obama, defended the companies in court.
The six plaintiffs said they were trafficked to cocoa plantations on the Ivory Coast, where overseers forced them to work as malnourished slaves without pay. They were whipped and tortured. When one escaped, plantation owners caught him, cut the soles of his feet and rubbed chili pepper into the wounds. Then they beat him, giving him permanent injuries.
The plaintiffs claimed that Nestlé and Cargill knew about child slavery where they worked yet still gave the plantations financial and technical assistance to get cocoa beans cheaply.
Their lawsuit depends on the interpretation of a 1789 law, the Alien Tort Statute. The law gives U.S. federal courts authority to hear lawsuits filed by foreigners alleging international law violations.
“The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States,” the statute reads.
In 2013, the Supreme Court ruled that foreign companies could not be sued in American courts under the ATS. But Nestlé and Cargill are based in the United States.
Katyal’s brief to the Supreme Court makes two arguments as to why the two companies should not be held responsible for enslaving children.
The first argument is that the ATS applies to lawsuits from foreigners living in the U.S. against U.S. corporations who commit crimes in the U.S., so crimes in other countries should be held exempt. Furthermore, Katyal said the plaintiffs lack enough evidence to link Nestlé and Cargill to the slave plantations.
The Supreme Court decides on questions of constitutionality, not questions of evidence, Terry Collingsworth, executive director of International Rights Advocates, told CP. Collingsworth worked with lawyer Paul L. Hoffman to gather and present evidence for the plaintiffs. Even so, the plaintiffs have enough evidence to show the two companies were involved with slave plantations.
“The Supreme Court is not the court to decide whether allegations are sufficient or should be improved,” he said. “We have a tremendous amount of allegations linking the two companies. Each appeal has taken a record amount of time.”
Nestlé and Cargill face an uphill battle in court, said Collingsworth. For most of American history, no one disputed whether corporations must abide by international law. A victory for Nestlé and Cargill would be “a real change in direction.”
Katyal argued that opening up American corporations to ATS liability around the world infringes on government separation of powers and creates foreign policy concerns.
“All Plaintiffs have alleged is that Nestlé USA purchased cocoa from Côte d’Ivoire, that ‘De- fendants’ collectively provided money and some services to farmers in Côte d’Ivoire, and that Nestlé USA made high-level corporate decisions in the United States about cocoa purchases. That is not nearly enough to fit this case within the 1789 Alien Tort Statute, which was never intended to be used in such a way,” his brief reads.
Lawyers in cases that involve international issues routinely mention separation of powers concerns, said Collingsworth. Usually, it’s only a formality.
“It was strange to everybody [that Katyal mentioned it],” he said. “You saw that even the person arguing for the solicitor general conceded that there is no separation of powers or foreign policy concern being addressed here. It’s just a standard argument made in these cases but in our case it was a throwaway.”
Katyal said that the plaintiffs should sue the people who enslaved them rather than the corporations that bought cocoa from the plantations. In World War II, prosecutors did not prosecute the firms that supplied the Nazis with poison gas.
Katyal told the Supreme Court a child slave could sue one slave owner, or 10 slaveowners, but that a slave couldn’t sue a corporation of slaveowners because there aren’t specific norms on corporate slavery in international law.
“I guess what I’m asking is what sense does this make?” said Justice Elena Kagan.
Other Supreme Court justices also responded harshly to Katyal’s claims. Katyal also said that if an American corporation hired foreigners to kidnap children into slavery, the corporation would be safe from lawsuits in the U.S.
“Your arguments lead to results that are pretty hard to take,” said Justice Samuel Alito.
Collingsworth said he was shocked that Nestlé and Cargill argued that corporations should go unpunished for slavery.
“Can corporations be immune under international law for slavery? Just to say that out loud is a pretty shocking possibility,” he said. “When you are preparing the Supreme Court process that lasts nearly a year, it’s not a spontaneous decision. There’s a difference between a normal human error and a one year process of implementing a decision to try to immunize corporations for slavery.”
Nestlé’s website page on human rights issues reads: “We’re dedicated to guaranteeing labor rights for all people who work with or for us, directly or indirectly. Working time is a key element of this. Excessive working hours can be detrimental to the health of individuals and families.”
Cargill’s website reads: “We stand with all who have spoken up to say Black lives matter and “not ever again.”
Americans can petition Congress to end slavery here, said Curran.
