THE NEW WAYS OF SLAVERY IN WESTERN ECONOMY. The fight for liberty.

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The fight for liberty.

Are all individuals equal before the law?

Our history shows how vulnerable groups were oppressed and exploited worldwide. Masses were driven to commit atrocities through denunciation. People were persecuted because they did not meet absurd requirements, did this or did not do that. Lies were told about them to justify their persecution and exclusion. It is telling that, in retrospect, our society failed to question ideologies and see through the facade of perpetrators deep to their true motives — greed, envy and power. People fail to realise that the german darkest history of persecution, was not only about a crime against a religion, it was against the sick, the disabled, minorities and opponents of a regime. Human rights violations occur worldwide because there is a gap in the society: A lack of compassion and social responsibility, mixed with disbelief and apathy. The sense of seeing away, to blurr the truth of suffering is deep rooted in our history. Complicity is attributed not least to active omission. Looking the other way in our society is perverse; it is silent, deeply ingrained in our DNA — and it is not prosecuted.

In all cases of denunciation and oppression a lie is needed for the purpose to abuse power.

Vulnerable groups, sick people, disabled people, and people with a migrant background are still exposed not only to exclusion and exploitation worldwide, but also to a new form of crime and human rights violations that are carried out under the guise of welfare, a justice system locked-out or positioned on a sideline. Discrimination is made possible by targeted denunciation, sometimes even with an involuntary involvement and abuse of public offices and official coercion.

Over the past few years, I have spoken to many people affected by hunger, poverty, illness and crime. Many of them were placed under guardianship, while their voices were never heard. If a person’s fundamental rights are restricted to the extent that they are no longer capable of acting on their own behalf, they should at least be heard. The fact that a hearing and the will of a person affected by guardianship in Germany can be bypassed and a restriction of fundamental rights can happen based solely on the consideration of files is the sad reality of a country with a long history of abuse.

There are many cases in which individuals are eliminated or silenced solely for strategic reasons, for the reason to obstruct justice, by hostile politically motivated forces or even by revenful, greedy associates. What I found most repulsive in many cases was that victims were demonstrably turned into perpetrators in order to stifle the voices of those affected in criminal proceedings and reverse the roles of perpetrator and victim. It was not uncommon for entire family tragedies to be staged in order to divide the immediate environment and manipulate perspectives. I do not differentiate between the people I meet. In my eyes, all people are equal and everyone has a right to speak out. A person’s voice is their right to self-determination.

Weaknesses are sought out or even manufactured, pulled out of thin air. On closer inspection, they are not even worth mentioning and pale in comparison to the cruelty of the perpetrators. I live in a country where denunciation has a long, bitter tradition. In Germany, people are well-versed in excluding others, believing in gossiping not only from a historical perspective. I can assure you that our government is doing a lot to learn from the past. Social and criminal law levers fail where they are most needed: among the poor, the elder, minorities, and people with a migrant background.

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The number of homeless people is rising, many of them because our government processes have been infiltrated or the justice system has failed or even been marginalized in cases of human trafficking, which is not an isolated incident. People are now talking about displacement from housing. Those affected are often women, single women with children, the sick, the elderly, and people with disabilities. These are the people for whom our government has a special duty to protect. The fact that these very people are at the mercy of digitalization and the power of an authorized person and are isolated from law enforcement agencies by the most stupid methods is not a special case, it is the rule. Let’s be honest: cases of fraud in care are so difficult to trace because the victims themselves cannot be located or heard because they are successful isolated.

I expect a developed country to have law enforcement agencies that are equipped with the appropriate means to combat this type of abuse in order to prevent and end it, rather than recommending hospitalization or psychological treatment for every victim of fraud, because digital methods are todays most used method in and especially after fraudulent actions in trafficking, incl. elder abuse cases. All that we are educated about is the simple grandchild scams.

Traffickers don’t care whether their victims are exposed to poverty or violence. They only care if this could potentially cause them to lose control over their victims and lead to criminal prosecution for abuse. Then they know how to bring about a statute of limitations by isolating the victim or, in the case of one-sided investigations, even bring about a perpetrator-victim reversal. Denunciation not only affects our standing in society, but also our professional careers and, unfortunately, investigative proceedings. A person who is not given a voice can be turned into a completely different person through denunciation.

I remember a case of abuse in which a elder homeless, after being exploited, was wrongly assumed with dementia and domestic violence in Düsseldorf. Because she did not receive a summons to a hearing regarding her guardianship, she was declared legally incompetent. It was assumed that she was unable to take care of her own affairs simply because her mail had been withheld and misappropriated. From then on, her pension went to a guardian who neither shared her pension nor cared for her well-being. Help was made dependent on a partial distribution of the pension to the guardian once a living under a roof was only offered by a placement in a care home. Her apartment had been cleared out, robbed — like so many others, she lost everything except the clothes she was wearing. Nothing of the alleged rumors were true. The woman had selflessly cared for her child alone over decades, enduring all the ups and downs, growing from it. She was extremely well-educated, intelligent, she had an remarkable friendly appearance, her understanding and vision for economics, politics and values was outstanding. Her voice was never heard. The voice of her exploiters and their flying monkeys was.

I find it remarkable that our government and politics allow individuals to be deterred from prosecuting for serious crimes against humanity and human freedom, inequality, crimes that enslave people facing financial and social harm, massive physical and psychological damage and deep grief. Our history shows that denunciation can incite an entire population against a minority and empower a regime to commit atrocities against innocent people.

Other countries are dealing with the issue in a refined manner already, provide practical resources not only for prevention, but also for affected individuals, a functioning protective shield for whistleblowers and a personal accessible point of contact at police for victims of abuse which is necessary. Police authorities are specially trained in dealing with crimes in this area (breach of trust, embezzlement, fraud), treating victims with understanding, respect, and consideration in order to take the right steps to protect them.

Elder abuse is usually only associated with pensioners and older people, but strictly speaking it also includes the abuse of vulnerable individuals, including those who suffer from limitations, illness or disabilities. Those who have been labeled as sick on paper in order to be defamed and exploited, may also be included here.

We should never allow our history to be blurred from our present, especially not through denunciation and the indiscriminate disenfranchisement of people in order to cover-up, marginalize, exploit, abuse and expose individuals to physical and mental abuse up to the status of homelessness, poverty, exclusion or abusive, inhumane living conditions. Individuals and groups have been identified in our society in order to enrich themselves and commit heinous acts in disregard of human rights.

Victims of this kind of modern slavery and human trafficking do not need to go on hunger strike to rebel against the violation of their human rights, we experience hunger and hardship every day. It takes a government and politicians who consider human freedom to be worthy enough to make change, democracy as the highest good and human dignity to be inviolable. People who have been deprived of their fundamental rights, their freedom and their voice are dependent on the voice and action of decision-makers in our justice system.