Wednesday, July 01, 2020

Slaves in Paradise

"Slaves in Paradise." That's what Fr. Christopher Hartley called the Haitian workers in the Dominican Republic who work the sugar cane fields. Slaves who live right next door to the U.S. He worked as a missionary in the beautiful D.R. about 10 years (1997-2006) and exposed the cruelty, and was eventually expelled. In the interview I heard on the radio, he named the wealthy family, and he called the workers "slaves," although in all the articles I checked they are called "immigrants," and usually the family is not named. He is English-Spanish and grew up in luxury and at one time worked with Mother Teresa. If BLM really cared about people of color, they'd be doing something about modern day slavery which is world wide. I heard the interview on "Kresta in the afternoon," EWTN and Ave Maria Radio, June 29. Documentary is "Price of sugar."

"The people in Father Hartley's parish were lured across the border from Haiti into the Dominican Republic by the promise of good jobs. All of them had their identification papers taken from them so that they are now undocumented workers in the sugar plantations — basically they are slaves. They spend twelve hours a day, seven days a week, in the fields cutting cane with machetes. In the shanty towns built by the plantation owners there is no electricity, clean water, education, healthcare, or adequate food.

These Haitian immigrants are poorer and blacker than the Dominicans and they are hated as outsiders. Father Hartley has made it his personal mission to fight for their human rights. He has single-handedly taken on the wealthy family that owns many of the plantations and controls the media."
 https://www.spiritualityandpractice.com/films/reviews/view/17417/the-price-of-sugar

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