divert foreign aid to flood-hit British families

Do you remember the story of that poor young man with learning difficulties in Sheffield last year, who was kept prisoner by his supposed employer (an ice cream man). The stuff that poor guy endured was heart wrenching.
Thank goodness for the neighbours who reported their concerns to the police.
Today it was reported in our local press that 8 people have been arrested on charges of people trafficking.
I think we all should be aware that it is going on and be prepared to discretely contact the police if concerned.

We may not be on the streets complaining but we (some of us) are doing what we can to help. Making a noise and being a presence on the streets is not the only way to do something effective.

origin not origen..sorry!

BAnanas it would be good to think that but sadly not sure many would be on the street protesting! We ( the nation not just us on GN!) have become mush more isolationist I think and only get angry when it affects 'people like us'.. hence the flood anger!
There are 1000s of people in slavery in the UK but they are often not of UK origen but immigrants traficked here.. are we on the streets complaining?

I agree with Bags posts, particularly with regard to apologising for injustices that are historic, we have to concentrate on the now, the past is gone and it can't be changed and it was often a dog eat dog world for many. Europeans weren't the only culture to take slaves, there were quite a number of people living in coastal regions in the West Country and Northern France who from time to time would have been carried off by raiding ships from North Africa and ended up as slaves there.

The director of 12 Years A Slave, Steve McQueen, made an interesting point in his acceptance speech at the BAFTAS, about just how many slaves there are today worldwide, which if I remember rightly was a pretty staggering figure. Correct me if I'm wrong anybody, but I perceive that most of these people will be enslaved by cultures other than our own.

On a similar theme, a shocking statistic I have heard about recently, 500 Indian migrant workers have died building the football stadiums in Qatar and Dubai doesn't seem to have much of a conscience as far as migrant deaths are concerned. I like to think that the general public in Britain would be out on the streets protesting if migrant workers had to jeopardise their lives on our building sites.

Yes, I'm saying I never went to that place, or at least that i don't remember going there. There! now you can disapprove of my parents to your heart's content . We lived off the Beverley Road near Endsleigh College where my dad worked. I don't suppose there was much need for us to go into the city centre.

Re the slavery issue, there's an interesting bit on Joanne Harris's Twitter feed (@joannechocolat) where she is talking about ten things the Vikings did for us.
@Spitefuel comes along with: #TenThingsTheVikingsDidForUs
Built culture around slave trade & then did a good job of hiding that from later pop culture?

She replies:
.@Spitefuel Name a civilisation that didn't...

We are not just talking western civilisations here. Slavery has been a problem everywhere and still is in some places. It was people from "the western world" that you seem to despise so much that got it abolished within their own jurisdiction. The United Nations is another initially "western" concept that is still fighting to improve the (equal) rights of people everywhere.

I lived in Hull, Bags, Spring Bank, within walking distance of the city centre, until I was 18 and my parents had four children, so could not afford bus trips out, even though my dad was a bus driver. Going to stuffy museums was part of our holidays. Hull museums have always been free.
Are you saying you never went to Queens Gardens? Wilberforce monument could not be missed if you did.It's at least 100 feet tall. Seemed even taller when I was a child.

Dear Jinglebellfrocks I think you will find that if you read my posts you will never find that that I condone:
1. The withdrawal of aid where it is needed
2. Slavery
3. Child employment.
What I have done is put forward a debate based on fact rather than hyperbole.
I do not accept things on face value, I wonder why and I research. Yes I was taught about slavery, but I wasn't taught that we were amongst the last to start using them and the first to stop.
I have worked in a very multicultural environment outside this country and spoken with many ex-pats quite a number from former colonies and they do not have the same sad impression of Brits than many here do. Honestly, many told me that we think we are stupid (their words). They also do not appreciate our condescending attitude to their cultures and staged media portrayals.
There are 'bad' parents throughout the world who 'exploit' their children. There are also many within these countries who strive for the best for their children.

Just catching up with this, I understand why rosesarered has wandered in, and wandered out again. I remember learning about W Wilberforce at 13, in history. It was my first exposure to Britain's part in the slave trade, and contribution to it being abolished. I tend to agree with the comments made by thatbags in relation to national guilt and hand wringing about the British Empire. Before I get shot, I'm not in anyway condoning oppression, slavery, colonisation but I do believe the historical context has to be acknowledged. Durhamjen, my great great grandfather was in the British Army in the 19th century, and in India for some time. Our verbal, and more recently, researched family history confirms that he, and his extended family, struggled to find work, children were regularly in and out of the workhouse during periods when their parents simply had no food to give them. I do not feel shame about any of this. I do feel that the same battles for equality and against oppression are alive and well, all over the world. Just to return to the OP - no we should not stop aid to people in need (except we do need to review contributions to India and China)

It's possible to want to help others, and to do so, without guilt baggage.

Others' experience of Hull will not necessarily be the same as yours, Jen. I don't remember ever going into Hull city centre, though I probably did on the bus occasionally with my mum. It would be occasionally as she had five kids, three of them younger than me.

Our family outings tended to be out of Hull to places like Beverley West Woods and Spurn Point. Far nicer for kids than stuffy old museums and monuments, which are fine in their way of course, but not really infant material. I was four when we moved to Hull and nine when we moved away. I don't think my education missed out by not visiting the Wilberforce Museum at that stage.

Actually, Joelsnan, it's necessary for Brits to take on the sins of the world because quite often we were the sinners.
And I buy fairtrade whenever it's available. It costs more, yes, but I feel the need to give something back for the sins of my forebears. I do not know if any of them were really bad, but I know some of them were in the British Army at the time of the Raj, and it was not very pleasant then for indigenous Indians. Oh, and I knew quite a few people from Asia and the West Indies, who came over here to work in our hospitals. My parents rented rooms out to them when I was at school. Otherwise they would not have been able to afford the mortgage.

William Wilberforce at times used to give money for the relief of poverty, as he felt guilty for what he had - and he was quite wealthy, otherwise he would not have been an MP.

I went to school in Hull, Thatbags, and we went to the Wilberforce Museum when I was in primary school. I wasn't suggesting you were lying, just that it's difficult to miss a monument that size near Queen's Gardens. It was built in 1834, by public subscription, and Wilberforce House was turned into a museum in the early 1900s. Queen's Dock had been regularly used to trade slaves at auction marts until Wilberforce put a stop to it. It was filled in and made into Queen's Gardens before I was born.

Being from Hull, I am proud of my association with the abolition of slavery. It's a long time since I've been called impertinent. Makes me feel quite young, but I doubt that was your intention.

If we don't shun the bad boys, they will never change. We need to encourage the good.

Do you really think it is ok for a, say, ten year old to work in a sweatshop for twelve hours a day, day in, day out? Really?

I really do not understand why some feel it necessary for Brits to take on the sins of the rest of the world.

It is not good for children to be working, however this is the culture into which millions are born. Our current perception of childhood is very different to that of these countries who see children as earners from a very young age. Sometimes the children are the only breadwinners within a family. It is not that long ago that child labour was commonplace in UK and the move to change had to come from within, just as we had to come to the recognition that slavery was a sin against humanity.

So, because some want to impose their own moral indignation upon a culture that they may only have a superficial concept of, they would withdraw trade and the opportunity of earning from that society and condem it to abject poverty.

Through trade, income is generated, one would hope that tax would be collected on this income which would be invested in infrastructure and education and the adults if these countries will eventually recognise that their children deserve a childhood.

We can't kid ourselves we buy from Primark and the like to put food in front of those workers. We do it to save ourselves money. No, we should only buy from retailers we are sure provide decent conditions. It's wrong to support child labour.

Walks into the thread, looks around............. and backs casually out again humming a little tune, off to find a happier subject.Gets to the door and shouts 'never read The Daily Mail'! before running off.

What's the alternative though? Stop buying the goods that provide them with some money even if it's nowhere near enough? Will the people who employ them in sweat shops make sure they have food on the table even though there is no work for them?

True.

Of course the Brits put the children in sweat shops. If they didn't buy "designer' trainers and tee shirts or cheap tat from Primark and similar shops, it wouldn't happen.

It is a fact that Arab slave traders crossed Africa from East to West, taking slaves from all tribes and, on the way, converted Africans to Islam. Islam still permits the taking of slaves. It may not be politically correct to expand on this. This article puts the historical context concisely and there are other items on the web which confirm this. When I lived for five years in Kenya, it was well known that a number of Africans, especially from the tribes in the East of the country, were lighter skinned because Arab traders had relationships with African women.

durhamjen It is the society in these countries that put the children into the sweatshops, not the Brits. Okay, we should encourage them not to do this, but what is the alternative? Take away the trade and let them eat worms?
I can assure you that not everyone in these countries was against colonisation, few areas were colonised by war, many were colonised through trade agreement with the ruling classes within these countries. The trade created wealth both for the colonials and for the countries. We Brits built schools, universities, hospitals, roads, railways, ports etc. for. As you know many of our doctors and nurses now come from former colonies who, because of the influence of the Brits are now educated probably better than we are now because they have retained many of the practices embedded by the Brits.

galen, nowhere south of Oxford unless you count the southern part of Thailand.

Oh! hang on! DH had a pad in Romsey for a while and I did visit him there while I was working in Oxford. Can't really say I lived there though.

galen,

Yes, Djen, really. Are you aware of how impertinent your tone is in apparently doubting this?

Blimey Bags where haven't you lived?

Nothing to do with the laws in those countries then?

I didn't learn about Wilberforce and his anti-slavery work when I was a primary school kid and when I did learn about him (in Lancashire by then) the fact that he was from Hull was not mentioned because it wasn't really relevant to the slavery issue. It still isn't. I shall look up the dates of the inaugurations of those Wilberforce things.

Quakers were/are part of "the western world" – you know, the good side of it that I keep mentioning.

I am surprised you did not know that Wilberforce was the MP for Hull if you actually lived there as a child, Thatbags. Wilberforce Monument, Wilberforce School, Wilberforce Museum.
The world's most famous historical philanthropists were usually Quakers.

The western world still encourages slavery in the form of child labour to produce cheap consumer goods for the richer countries. Just because these children live in China and India does not absolve the west from its part in creating the conditions for the manufacture of cheap clothes, etc.