Who to blame for modern-day slavery

Just last night PM Abdullah launched our Visit Malaysia Year 2007 campaign. The campaign costs RM200 million and much has been and will continued to be done to woo the foreigners.

PM says a successful campaign will bring in 20 million tourists who will spend some RM44 billion here over the course of the year - that’s a massive return for an investment of RM10 per tourist!

But the saddening thing is the deafening silence by the government over issues relating to our own people - people who live below the poverty line, and in some cases, people who are treated as slaves even now as we enter the 50th year of our independence.

As I mentioned yesterday, I did a special report on one such bonded family just last week for malaysiakini.

On Saturday, I spoke to a MIC politician, a political commentator and an academic as to why we still have bonded labourers in our midst.

Interestingly the politician said the blame lies solely on the labourers, the political analyst says MIC and other civil societies should do their job while the academic accuses the media for highlighting such sorry tales.

Read more of the final part here.