The list of products is child labor, or both.

Child labor abuse

long and surprising
The Trafficking Victims Protection
Reauthorization Acts of 2005 and 2008
required the Department of Labor to
compile and publish a list of products
produced by child labor or forced labor,
and the countries where these abuses were
prevalent. After much foot-dragging, and
in response to public clamor from the
abolitionist community, the list was finally
unveiled in 2009 by the new administration.
seems the most prevalent worldwide.
The most common goods having a
significant incidence of forced and/or
child labor in agriculture: cocoa, coffee,
cotton, rice, sugarcane, and tobacco. In
manufacturing: bricks, garments, carpets,
and footwear. In mined/quarried goods:
gold, diamonds and coal.

122 goods in 58 countries were produced

with a significant incidence of forced labor,

http://www.fightslaverynow.wordpress.com

General comprehension
1 Make a list of the products mentioned in the text that are manufactured using slave labour.
2 According to the text, how many of these slave labourers are children?
3 What is the name of the ore mined in the Democratic Republic of Congo and used to produce
the metal tantalum?
4 What word in the text is used to describe a primitive, simple tool?
5 In the text the American Department of Labor is accused of ‘foot-dragging’ in its work on publishing
a list of products produced using child labour. What does this phrase mean?
6 The Department of Labor published a list of countries and products involving slave labour after
‘clamor from the abolitionist community’. Explain the meaning of this phrase.
7 What word used in the text means ‘items of clothing’?

Text handling
Find the following words in the text and examine the context. Then give synonyms (word or phrase)
for them.

1 gifts 5 crude tools

2 slapped in the face 6 hazardous
3 commodities 7 foot-dragging
4 tainted 8 clamor

Written work
Imagine that at your school you have had a guest speaker from an organisation called See Chapter 1 for guidance on
Stop Slavery Now. The speaker talked to your class about cheap products and slave writing a blog.
labour, giving you detailed information about the situation in the textile factories
in Pakistan and Bangladesh and the conditions the workers there have to endure.
Write a personal blog entry in which you reflect on your reactions to the guest
speaker and your feelings about the situation of the workers. Write between
300 and 400 words.
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 03 Slave labour

Some points to think about when you are preparing your blog
Remember that a blog entry is like a website: it is read electronically and is often in the
style of a newspaper or magazine article. It will be written in a formal or semi-formal
register. A blog invites reactions and comments from other readers. In your blog you
may want to consider some of the points below.
• The reason you have chosen to write this blog.
• Your thoughts about the speaker: was he/she persuasive, interesting, dynamic,
well informed and committed?
• What you have learnt about countries and products connected to slave labour.
• How much you think this issue should affect our shopping habits.
• Whether you want to propose any action that should be taken.

Individual oral activity

Do you think you or your family buy products that are produced using slave labour? Explore the
website www.slaveryfootprint.org to find out how many slaves work for you.
Find other sites that give you information. Organise the results of your search and prepare a three- or
four-minute presentation to give to your class or to a group within your class. Link your presentation
to the knowledge you have gained from your reading and the opinions you have formed.

3.3 The story of a slave

Text 3.3.1 Frederick Douglass: biography

To read about modern day
slave labour using children,
read Iqbal by Francesco For us the majority of slaves are people without names. Not that they
d’Adamo. It is based on the
were never given a name, but we never learn their names and never
lives of child slaves making
carpets in Pakistan. get a chance to hear them tell their story. Their lives remain an
untold tragedy.

However, the life of one slave, Frederick Douglass, is well documented

and his story and his fame stand for the millions whose lives
remain anonymous.

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in the United States of America
at the beginning of the 19th century. His date of birth is not known
because details of the parentage of slaves were not recorded. At the
age of 12 Frederick Douglass was sold to the slave owner Hugh Ald,
whose wife taught Douglass to read and write. These skills would
vault him to national celebrity years later.

In the year 1838 Frederick Douglass escaped from his slave owners and
travelled to New York where he was supported by the abolitionist

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 David Ruggles. Douglass became a vociferous
supporter of the abolition of slavery and gave
passionate speeches at abolitionist meetings.
The journalist William Lloyd Garrison
encouraged Frederick Douglass to write down
his experiences as a slave. His autobiography
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American
Slave was published in 1845, became a bestseller in
the United States and was translated into several
European languages.

Frederick Douglass became famous; his writings

and the talks he gave were inspirational and won
many supporters for the abolition of slavery.
President Abraham Lincoln and Frederick
Douglass had long discussions about slavery.
In 1863 President Lincoln’s Emancipation
Proclamation declared the freedom of slaves
in Confederate territory.
Above Frederick Douglass.
Frederick Douglass died in 1895.

General comprehension
1 Explain the meaning of the sentence ‘Their lives remain an untold tragedy’.
2 Frederick Douglass was literate, an unusual ability for a slave. How did he become literate?
3 What event made it possible for Frederick Douglass to become a speaker at abolitionist meetings?
4 What influence did Frederick Douglass have on achieving freedom for slaves in Confederate territory?

Text handling
Match the words from the text on the left with the corresponding definitions on the right.
There are more words on the right than you need.
1 anonymous A a person in favour of slavery
2 parentage B loud and articulate
3 vault C a supporter of the ending of slavery
4 vociferous D having no name
5 abolitionist E to achieve something in a short time
F angry
G family origins
H to jump over something

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 03 Slave labour

3.3.2 From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,

an American Slave by Frederick Douglass

CHAPTER 1

I
was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from
Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my
age, never having seen an authentic record containing it. By far the larger
part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs,
and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves
thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of
his birthday. They seldom came nearer to it than planting-time, cherry-time,
spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a
source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children
could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same
privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning
it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and
impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give
makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come
to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about
seventeen years old.

My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and
Betsy Bailey, both colored and quite dark. My mother was of a darker
complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.

My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by any I ever heard
speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was
my father, but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means
of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I
was but an infant – before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom,
in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their
mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its
twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out at some farm a
considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old
woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not
know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection towards
its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for
the child. This is the inevitable result.

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I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in
my life; and each of those times was very short in duration, and at night. She
was hired by Mr Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She
made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on
foot, after the performance of her day’s work. She was a field hand, and a
whipping is the penalty for not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave
has special permission from his or her master to the contrary – a permission
which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud
name of being a kind master. I do not recollect ever seeing my mother by the
light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and
get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little
communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little
we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She
died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master’s farms, near
Lee’s Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death or
burial. She was gone long before I knew any thing about it. Never having
enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and
watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same
emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.

From Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,

published by Penguin Books

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 03 Slave labour

General comprehension
1 According to the text, what is the reason for slaves not knowing when they were born?
2 ‘I never knew my mother, to know her as such.’ Explain the meaning of the words ‘as such’.
3 Frederick Douglass describes his grandparents as ‘colored’. What does he mean by this?
4 What is the impression created in the first paragraphs of this book about the life of a slave?

Text handling
Examine the following statements and say if they are true or false according to the text.
Give a brief justification by quoting from the text.
1 Frederick Douglass suffered as a child from not knowing when he was born.
2 Frederick’s master considered questions about his birth to be appropriate.
3 Death was a relief for Frederick’s mother.
4 Frederick did not go to his mother’s funeral.

Zoom in on grammar
‘Would’
We use would when we look back on the past and remember things that happened repeatedly.
Look at this sentence from the excerpt in which Frederick Douglass is talking about his mother:
She would lie down with me and get me to sleep.
The word would shows that this action happened in the past on more than one occasion.

Grammar in context
‘Would’
1 These sentences are about things that often happened in the past. Use the word would with one of
these verbs: help / be / take.
a) The cinema today is nearly always empty but I remember a few years ago it ________ crowded
every night.
b) When she went out, my grandmother ________ always ________ an umbrella with her whether it
was raining or not.
c) When I was a child I ________ my father wash the car every Saturday.

2 Now make your own examples by completing the sentences.

a) In the 1960s people…
b) I walk to school now, but when we lived in California…
c) When my brother was 5 years old…

Zoom in on grammar
Prepositions of time
• For days of the week – on Monday, on Tuesday, etc
• For months – in January, in February, but on 26th January, on 12th May
• For years – in 2012, in 1066
• For the time – at 3pm, at 6 o’clock, at a quarter past 5.

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 Grammar in context
Prepositions of time
Fill in the correct prepositions:
1 I left the house ______ 5 a.m.
2 President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation ______ 1st January 1863.
3 The Rana Plaza factory in Bangladesh collapsed ______ April 2013.
4 I always go swimming ______ 5pm ______ Monday.
5 Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery _______ 1838.
6 I am completing this exercise ______ the year 20??.

Zoom in on grammar
The gerund
Look at the following sentence from Text 3.2.1:
‘You check your email over morning coffee, stirring in just a bit of sugar.’
The gerund shows the reader that the activity ‘to stir’ is happening at the same time as the activity
‘to check’. This example could be re-written as follows:
‘You check your email over morning coffee while you stir in just a bit of sugar.’
Be careful though: while the gerund is a verb in the -ing form, not all verbs + -ing are gerunds!
Compare these two sentences:
1 The student is studying for the final exams.
2 Studying is essential for success.
In the first sentence, ‘studying’ is the participle of the verb and not the gerund form; in the second
sentence, ‘studying’ is the subject of the sentence and the gerund. It is used as a noun.

Grammar in context
The gerund
Join these sentences using a gerund (-ing verb).
1 She ran down the road. She shouted for help and looked desperately for someone who could help her.
2 The band played a march that drowned out all other sounds. It made conversation impossible.
3 Tim drove down the High Street. He laughed and waved to his friends who were waiting at the bus stop.

Written work (HL)

Read the following text:
‘Slavery was abolished 150 years ago, right? While it is true that slavery is illegal almost
everywhere on earth, the fact is there are more slaves today than there ever were.’
Robert Alan Silverstein
Give a personal response to the stimulus and justify it. Write a speech or mini essay
in/using 150–250 words.

For more information on

Exam hints Robert Alan Silverstein, go to
Think about the following questions when you are planning your personal response. www.pearsonhotlinks.com,
enter the title or ISBN of this
• What is your first reaction to the statement?
book and click on Chapter 3.
• Will you write from only one standpoint, or will you present a balanced answer?
• What facts will you use to support your ideas?
• Who is your audience?
• What words or phrases will you use to make sure your text flows smoothly from one point to
the next?

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 03 Slave labour
3.4 The Help
Text 3.4.1 A review of the novel The Help by
Kathryn Stockett
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2012/jan/14/review-the-help-kathryn-stockett
“Jackson, Mississippi, 1962. Black maids raise
white children, but aren’t trusted not to steal
the silver” is the first line that you read on the
blurb of The Help and this rings true not
only in the book but in history too.
The Help is an unforgettable story told from the
viewpoints of three very unforgettable women:
Aibileen, raising her seventeenth white child;
Minny, forever losing jobs due to her sassy tongue;
and Miss Skeeter, an aspiring writer who has been
raised by black maids all her life.
When Skeeter gets the opportunity of a lifetime to
become a published author, she of course takes it
but in order for this to happen, she has to write
about things that people need to read about.
In a time when even talking to a black person was
shunned, these three women team up on a project
that will put them all at risk in an attempt to change
the minds of the Jackson residents. What follows
was, for me, a rollercoaster ride of emotion, as we
hear stories of cruelty and humiliation
but also those of tenderness.
This book has characters in it that
you are meant to empathise with and
those, of course, whom you are
meant to dislike. The way in which
Stockett has written about her
characters is so believable that I
didn’t find myself thinking ‘no-one
would have said or done that.’ As
I was reading this book, it didn’t
http://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2012/jan/14/review-the-help-kathryn-stockett
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cross my mind at all that it was fiction because
everything Kathryn Stockett wrote about seemed
thoroughly believable, particularly coming from
such different characters.
It is told in alternating viewpoints from the three
main characters, so we get to see from both sides
of the story in this book; from the League ladies
such as the truly venomous Miss Hilly, to the maids
who work for them and basically raise their children
single handedly.
It’s hard for me to fault this book, except I feel that
Skeeter did not quite understand the danger she
was putting the maids in to help her write the book,
as there was much more risk for black maids to tell
stories about their employers than it was for
Skeeter to write them. However, the
characters were well built and the
plot was very intriguing. It’s definitely
a hard subject to write about and we
see that from both Kathryn Stockett’s
and Skeeter’s writing. The Help
changed the lives of the women in
the book and I feel as if somehow it
changed my life too. The Help really is
a special book and I encourage
anyone and everyone to check it out.
 General comprehension
1 List the narrators in the novel and the roles they play.
2 The use of three narrators enables the reader to gain insight into the situation in a special way. Can you
explain how this makes the story successful?
3 From your previous knowledge, can you describe how the social situation in the USA has changed
since 1962?

Text handling
Here are four words from the text. Of the four possible meanings offered for each one, which is the
most accurate according to the text?
1 sassy 3 venomous
a) loud a) friendly
b) foreign b) helpful
c) cheeky c) poisonous
d) heavily accented d) sly

2 shunned 4 intriguing
a) banned a) fascinating
b) avoided b) complicated
c) punished c) intense
d) forbidden d) disturbing

Exam hints
There are a number of points to notice about writing a book review. Read the tips below.
• Write in the present tense.
• Include a brief summary of the events in the story.
• Avoid saying ‘I think…’.
• Give an opinion of the story.
• Give a recommendation to readers.

Written work
Consider one of the books you have read in your Diploma course and write a review of
it. Follow the tips given above and write the review in 300–400 words.

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 03 Slave labour
Exam practice
The cost of a T-shirt
Textile workers in Bangladesh deserve better
protection from their employers
It is brutally apparent that the garment factories
employing millions of workers in Bangladesh are
unsafe. Seventeen days ago a building collapsed,
killing more than 1,000 people. More recently, a
fire in another claimed a further eight lives.
Health-and-safety legislation in the Western
world is often mocked, yet the enforcement of
tight controls means that industrial accidents
have become mercifully rare. However, in the
developing economies of Asia and Africa scenes
of carnage at the workplace are all too frequent.
Many of the cheap clothes sold on British high
streets are made in Bangladesh. The temptation
to blame bargain-hunting consumers for the
poor pay and conditions endured by textile
workers in Dhaka is clear, yet should be resisted.
As the Trades Union Congress (TUC) pointed
out yesterday, using figures from unions in
Bangladesh, wages account for only a fraction
of the retail price of clothing originating in
54
Bangladesh. Pay rates could be doubled, says the
TUC, while adding a negligible amount to the
cost of a T-shirt.
It is not often this newspaper is in agreement
with the TUC but on this issue their argument is
persuasive. British people want cheap clothes,
but surely not at the cost of the life of the person
who makes them.
Shoppers should make this view plain to the
many retailers and suppliers currently profiting
from using grossly underpaid workers labouring
long hours in factories that can turn into death-
traps in an instant. The responsibility for
ensuring the fair remuneration and safety of
those workers lies with their employers and the
authorities in Bangladesh. It is a responsibility
that both parties appear to have shirked.
TUC is the abbreviation for the Trades Union
Congress – an umbrella organisation of all
trade unions in the UK.
The Times, London Leader, May 11 2013
 Exercises
Answer the following questions.

1 What does the collapse of the building in Bangladesh tell you about health-and-
safety regulations in that country?

2 According to the text, should consumers looking for cheap clothes be blamed for
the situation of the textile workers in Bangladesh?

3 Match the words from the text with the synonyms on the right. Write the
appropriate letter in the box below.

Example: apparent B

I mocked A extremely

II carnage B clear

III retailers C slaughter

IV negligible D avoided

V grossly E minimal

VI shirked F laughed at

G shop owners

Further exercises

Interactive oral activity

In groups of three, discuss what you think the main idea is that is expressed in this text. Read the text
again, then talk about the following points.

• Express your own opinions about slave labour and the clothes you buy with the other students in
your group. You thought about some of these points when you wrote the answers to the ‘General
comprehension’ exercises.
• Some people think it is better to have a hard job than no job at all. What is your opinion about this?
• Discuss the factors that influence your choices when you buy clothes in the country you live in. Do
you think as a consumer you can change anything?
When you give an opinion always give reasons for your thinking. Before the discussion you must
take time to prepare some thoughts and arguments. Planning what you want to say is a vital part
of any oral work.
It is important that each member of the group has a chance to express opinions and thoughts. You
must also be prepared to report back to the other groups in the class at the end of your discussion.

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