Modern day slavery

Upon returning home this year for my annual leave- I was reminded by my sister regarding Zakat. Zakat or Alms for my non-Muslim friends, constitutes one of the 5 pillars of Islam. It is a compulsory, yearly monetary contribution that must be made by every Muslim whose assets and savings exceed that of a defined nisab. This is the market value equivalent to 86 grams of gold. Currently this roughly makes out to be $4650. 2.5% of this assets - be it savings, investments, properties or gold have to be paid yearly to the 8 Asnafs - groups of people who have been defined in the Quran (Surah Al-Tauba) as eligible to receive this monetary aid.

Fakir - One who has neither material possessions nor means of livelihood.
Miskin - One with insufficient means of livelihood to meet basic needs.
Amil - One who is appointed to collect zakat.
Muallaf - One who converts to Islam.
Riqab - One who wants to free himself from bondage or the shackles of slavery.
Gharmin - One who is in debt (money borrowed to meet basic, halal expenditure).
Fisabillillah - One who fights for the cause of Allah.
Ibnus Sabil - One who is stranded in journey.

Since joining the workforce and facing the reality of paying my own bills, rent, petrol, car expenses and food, it was gratifying to realise I had reached a full year of employment and that zakat had become one of the important payments I could make. Owning my own wealth had to have its perks - and this was one of them.

I began to look at the various options available at home during my annual leave - who received the zakat and which groups still existed. As I went down the list of Asnafs, I mentally excluded Riqab thinking that surely slavery was non-existent today.

I had flown to Bangkok just the week before for a few days with my family. I was walking through the shopping strips filled with hundreds of tourists bargaining with reluctant shop owners. The smell of barbequed snappers coated with layers of sea salt and pad Thai wafted through the smoggy air. In the middle of a shopping alley, sat a very young, skinny Thai girl that looked to be about thirteen years old. She was holding a tiny baby in her arms holding a cup filled with coins. With my limited paediatric experience, I guessed the baby to be about at least a month old.

My first thought was that this baby could be the girl's own child. Could she have been involved in the child sex trade in Thailand? Was she sold into this trade? Was she born into this trade? What happened to her so that she became to be where she is today? If this circumstance was true - it did not occur to me that I was looking at a girl who was enslaved in many ways. Afterall, I did not see any chains or shackles.

Several weeks after this incident, I came across the video above. It was not a new issue to me. Yet I was looking at it in a different light. I was very ashamed of my insensitivity to this modern day atrocity. For a long time, the term 'slavery' just did not automatically conjure affinity or meaning to current day events for me. Child sex slavery hardly exists in my homeland. Prostitution which is legal in my home country could be argued to be a form of slavery - but that is a discussion for another day.

But the hard truth is that slavery still continues to exist in modern day. And child sex slavery - the worse of its kind makes me cringe inside as a woman and as a human being, horrified that human atrocities such as this have been indeed become normalised. What have I become? Alhamdulliah I am a woman who is fortunate to have many basic freedoms - I have the right to education, to employment, to dress the way I choose, to be heard and to choose who I marry. No man can sell me or exploit me the way these children and women have been.

These children and women are the unheard and unseen modern day slaves. I wonder - should they not be eligible to receive the zakat from the many who pay this every year? They are in the worse kind of bondage - these children often end up murdered, permanently scarred both physically and emotionally, infected with HIV and ostracized by society. Without a doubt, this group of people is not the only one who is in need of zakat but I feel that they have particularly been forgotten and neglected.

Browsing through international donation and zakat websites, most causes have been dedicated to humanitarian efforts in war-torn areas and countries afflicted by poverty, relief efforts in natural disaster hit areas, education for children and women - all very excellent causes. I was not able to find any specific cause dedicated to the freeing of children and women from this slavery. Perhaps it is a reflection of the current status of this issue - forgotten and swept under the carpet. Or unrecognised?

Imagine if a regular part of zakat from so many Muslims worldwide is also given to free and rescue these poor girls trapped in child sex slavery, not only in India but in many other parts of South East Asia. This is just a small piece of the human trafficking that occurs in the world. These children are forced into the sex trade or are forced to beg, often physically mutilated in the process. The children you see begging in the streets as you do your Umrah - they are unwilling participants of this big, evil conspiracy. Unfortunately in these Arab countries, not much is being done to raise awareness and stamp out this atrocity. Again, perhaps a reflection of the silence that surrounds this issue.

Just my thoughts - please do correct me or share your thoughts if I am mistaken in any part. I am always willing to learn. May Allah s.w.t. bless all those women and men who fight for these women and children, day in and day out.

Other useful links: Prajwala - if you want to learn more or donate, Zakat