‘WORSE THAN SLAVERY

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29984, 20 November 1962, Page 10

‘WORSE THAN SLAVERY

Forced Labour In S.-W. Africa (N-Z.P.A ,-Rsuter—CopvrtgM > NEW YORK. Nov. 19. South-wort Africa harbour* a system of forced labour worse than alavery. accord* ing to the International Con* federation of Free Trade Unions.

The charges were made in a memorandum submitted to the United Nations Trusteeship Committee, which is considering the territory's status. the "New York Times" reported yesterday The memorandum said that Africans recruited for mines and farms toiled under conditions that made it “more accurate" to consider the labour system M a form of modern forced labour which is one of the characteristic practices of totalitarian regimes.” The confederation said that the large investment involved in buying a slave for his lifetime placed ''economic limitations on the exploitation of the labour force." A slave owner, the unions said, must not exhaust the worker before the investment was repaid by his labour.

But in South-West Africa the recruited Africans, often shipped to their jobs in cattle trains, might work only up to two and a half years at a time. As a result, the confederation said, even though the employer paid a recruiting fee, economic restrictions on driving the workers did not exist. It said that frequently the working day extended up to 20 hours on farms. In mining and industry, it said, working hours were more elastic and might vary from 48 to 78 a week.