Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking

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ex-l

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Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking

Post23 Nov 2013

Domestic servitude is a special category of labor trafficking: the plight of domestic workers such as maids, servants, housekeepers, child-care givers, those caring for the elderly, the ill, and the infirm. Frequently these are young women who have been promised an education but rarely get what they bargained for. In India, 10,000s of young girls are sold like animals into indentured servitude by their impoverished parents.

The practice of domestic servitude has become virtually institutionalised and is part of the Brahma Kumaris' business model.

Labor trafficking is ongoing commercial exploitation and a loss of freedom to walk away.


In London, the media is in shock about the case of three women who claim to have been held as slaves for 30 years in a suburban house and are currently exploring that there is a cult connection. The youngest woman, who is 30 years old, appears to have been born into the house and to have had little life outside of it.

The Metropolitan police are describing it as the worst case of domestic servitude they have seen. The women were rescued after hearing about a small charity who works with such cases after one of the women telephoned a number provided in a television news report on forced marriage.

Domestic servitude or 'forced labour' is not a simple matter. Research shows that situations of severe labour exploitation result from a complex set of overlapping factors: employment precarity, restricted access to welfare, poverty, destitution and insufficient labour regulation, and often immigration status insecurity. They often stop individuals exiting from situations of forced labour where they are not paid, have no rights and highly restricted lives.

Domestic servitude is a kind of slavery characterised by an unequal exploitative relationship between parties which the inferior party is unable to end by their own volition.

The International Labour Organisation’s Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL) defined forced labour in 1930 as,
“all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily”.

The indicators for this include,
The indicators are:
    Abuse of vulnerability
    Deception
    Restriction of movement
    Isolation
    Physical and sexual violence
    Intimidation and threats
    Retention of identity documents
    Withholding of wages
    Debt bondage
    Abusive working and living conditions
    Excessive overtime

We have over the course of many years following the Brahma Kumaris received complaints, tip offs and pleas for help from or regarding individuals who it is alleged are kept as virtual slaves, working for their cult full-time and for longer hours than normal paid employment, often on false or no visa.

This includes cases in the West, e.g. in the BKWSO.
    Individuals without other incomes
    Individuals, generally but not exclusively women, who had either "surrendered" whatever savings they had, or had had their dowries handed over to cult as children
    Individuals who had been "surrendered" by their parents who had been encouraged by superstitious beliefs about the "spiritual benefits" they would gain by giving the cult an unpaid worker
    Individuals who had been separated from their own families and cultures, sometimes in a foreign country
Do the Brahma Kumaris practise 'forced labor'?

Typical to their beliefs, and to use their own language, I believe it might be said, "the Brahma Kumaris practise a 'royal' form of forced labor where individuals are literally enslaved, mentally enslaved, by a now very well refined dishonest and controlling manipulation of individuals' vulnerable or better intentions, that is to say, their religious tendencies.

A slow process of enculturation which is rooted in and typical to their original Sindhi culture and position within Hindu society and the caste system.

Typically, one might say it is a "royal" form of slavery, that is to say very "subtle" and discrete ... a nicer class of slavery and largely a mental slavery. The adherent is slave by a mental trap which they the BKWSU leaders control and manipulate and even call liberation in life.

You give us all you money, you give us all you income, you work for us for free ... and tomorrow in the Golden Age you shall be Kings and Queens and enjoy heavenly pleasures for 2,500 years ... submit to being our unquestioning slaves and you will become the very gods and goddess worshipped in Hinduism!!!

What a deal is offered by "Baba the Clever Businessman" ... or is it "Baba the Royal Slave Owner"?

One of the Brahma Kumaris maxims or guiding principles, taken and corrupted from their Sindhi Bhaiband culture, is to be "like sugar in milk". To appear sweet and to merge with which ever dominant society they find themselves within; not to question, not to opposite, to align themselves with who ever is in power and act in a dignified or "divine" manner".

And then hide and lie and manipulate the truth of their beliefs and activities, to ride roughshod over the laws of the land, to pass money around the world (mostly it has to be said back to India) invisibly and exploit individuals as much and in whatever way they can. If you are a Brother with a car ... wah, drama! ... you will gain a special status (as an unpaid taxi driver). If you are an unskilled, uneducated woman ... you won't be empowered or uplifted ... you will become an unpaid cleaner or domestic help, e.g. join the "chapati rolling" jati within the ranks of the BKWSU.

And for these services to their religio-political cult, their social climbing, you will be rewarded ... just enough to keep you on ... with a share of the Brahma Kumaris wealth and status, e.g. you won't get holidays or days off ... the Confluence Age is too short and you have to "grind your bones to earn a high status" ... but you will be allowed to go and stay at one of their retreat centers and do more of the same. At best your otherwise insignificant existence will be rewarded by an artificial feeling of being special and enjoying the 'status by association' game the BK leaders play.

Please tell me, how different are the following examples from lives offered to "surrendered BKs"
Abuse of vulnerability

“ A Chinese maid who worked 365 days a year did not speak a word of French except “good morning” and “good evening”. She was kept in a situation of dependence because of the language, continuous work and isolation. That maid was a veritable slave. ”

A labour inspector in France
Deception

“ My mum told me her Sister was planning to come and get me so that I could start living with her. It was my auntie who promised to pay for my school expenses but did not fulfil her promises. Instead she turned me into a maid. ”

A young Zambian woman
Restriction of movement

“ It was impossible to escape, not even worth contemplating. It lasted two months, they took me to clients and brought me back. Always under guard. ”

A 16-year-old girl from Kazakhstan trafficked for prostitution

Funnily enough, we have heard more than once about how young Kumaris are always guarded by an old BK Sister ... what freedoms do those young Indian girls they fly in and out have? Who keeps their papers? How can they escape if they have no money and are not educated or able to earn incomes and savings of their own? In the BKs, you are always watched and often reported on.
Isolation

“ The camp was in an area that was very difficult to reach. To travel to an urban centre, you had to plan the journey several days in advance. ”

An escaped indigenous worker in Peru
Retention of identity documents

“ As I passed through immigration, the driver grabbed my passport. I cannot leave because my passport is with the employer, and I cannot move around without it. ”

A Nepali man working as a cleaner in the United Arab Emirates
Excessive overtime

“ I had to work 19 hours a day without any rest and overtime payment or holiday. They treated me like an animal. ”

A Nepali migrant worker
Withholding of wages

“ At the beginning, he promised me a salary and I started to work. He gave me food and sometimes bought me some clothes. But I was still waiting for my salary. When I asked him about my salary, he would say: ‘After selling these products’. I would continue working with him nevertheless. One night, I told him I wanted what he owed me because I wanted to leave. He jumped at me and started beating me and shouting at me ‘You can leave if you want but I won’t give you anything.’ I left crying. I had stayed 16 months at his place, but got nothing. ”

A 16-year-old boy in Niger
Abusive working and living conditions

Whereas we have recently heard of a widely reported allegation of sexual abuse within BKism, I would admit it is rare ... unless you see the denial of sexual pleasure and physical affection as a different kind of sex abuse, which I think it is. By denying their adherents simple love and affection, the BKs leaders are able to control and monopolise their focus and attention on to themselves as proxies for their god spirit.

Intimidation and threats happen again is a more subtle manner. Yes, physical and mental intimidation and threats do happen, e.g. the beatings handed out to PBKs but it is done in a far deeper and more mentally manipulative manner, the treat of social outcasting from the cult adherents become absolutely dependent on ... the threat of what is essentially eternal damnation for "failing" or becoming a "traitor" to the cult ... the threat of judgement and terrible suffering at Judgement Day (Dharamraj) where the weak and disobedient will "cry tears of blood", grind their teeth and make screaming noises as they are "crushed like mustard seeds".

These are all literal quotes take from the core teachings around which BKism has been formed ... Destruction, the annihilation of 7 billion (actually, their god spirit said 4.5 billion to begin with but he never has been very good with predictions and numbers) ... civil war blood baths from which only the god of the BKs can save the obedient, and so on. Repeated and re-affirmed constantly, such images become the bars to the irrational mental prison BK slaves are kept in ... albeit a golded cage for most Westerners (the dividing line between the main BK castes appears to be Sindis and Whites on top, darker skinned Indians and South Americans on bottom. Blacks, as Dadi Janki once said, are considered to be the "most impure souls").

"Withholding of wages"? BK sevadharis (servants) don't get wages ... unless they belong to the BK caste of elite handmaidens and eunuch performing corporate services, or a few that manage to pocket a few of the donations for personal pleasure. In rare cases, literally a handful, devoted individuals are rewarded with free food and accommodation for their lifetime of service.

"Retention of identity documents", we don't know enough about how the BK leaders manages its low ranking surrendered Sisters. The BK leaders, like Jayanti Kripalani, habitually respond disingenuously, "anyone is free to leave anytime" ... if, of course, they can mentally cope with eternal damnation and the loss of all the best years of their life. Many just stay in order to get something back out it all.

"Debt bondage"? No, in the BKs is more "donation bondage" ... you've got to keep giving and human tendency to give more is exploited.

In the case above, the individuals have been charge, vaguely, with "suspicion of domestic servitude, false imprisonment and offences against the person".

Section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, which came into force in 2010, created a new offence of holding another person in slavery or servitude or requiring them to perform forced or compulsory labour. The first person charged with it had made their servant work 18-hour days and found guilty of "the most appalling greed".

What hours do Brahma Kumaris servants work?
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking

Post23 Nov 2013

ex-l wrote:What hours do Brahma Kumaris servants work?

A rhetorical question really ... anyone that's been part of the BKs knows the answers, sees them but does not ask or question the ethics of it. They are given no real education, no way out, just tested for their submission and devotion to the leaders.

They are on call all their waking hours, 7 days a week, and if there is a big programme, 18 hours plus is nothing.

Of course, the deal they get might even be a better one than an independent small centre in charge who is expected to do a full days work earning money to run the centre, and then the rest of their time cooking, cleaning and preparing the centre and giving classes, 7 days a week 4am to 10.30pm. Plus extras. At least the "chosen few" that are allowed to be handmaiden servants for senior Brahma Kumaris are generally allowed a siesta in the afternoon to keep them looking fresh. A newly surrendered Kumari at the bottom of the pecking order might not, living a life of total control and without any privacy. They often have to sleep on the floors of the very "classrooms" they are then indoctrinated in.

More details are emerging about this mental enslavement in London. The accused in question are Indian; one from India, the other via East Africa like many of the BKs who came to England with nothing when they were thrown out by the Africans. Previous such cases have involved Pakistani couples suggesting that it is just cultural, a replacement for the servant castes as back home.

It is claimed that this latest couple suspected of keeping three women as slaves for 30 years used "cult-like techniques to brainwash their victims".

The extraordinary psychological control they exerted meant the three were kept captive in ‘invisible handcuffs’. Local politicians and community leaders briefed on the case compared their ordeal to people trapped in a religious cult.

Like the Brahma Kumaris, the pair had also engaged in immigration offences.

Psychological experts in such cases say the victims may find it difficult to impossible to recover from their experience, especially for the youngest woman - the 30-year-old - as she will never have known any other way of life.

What difference from a young Brahma Kumari, or a daughter "surrendered" by parents entrapped by Brahma Kumarism?

Dr James Thompson, who specialises in captivity and trauma at the University of London, said "it would be worse for them than a 'lifer' being released after decades inside prison".

Part of what makes the Brahma Kumari enslavement so wrong, putting aside that it is being done in the name of god and religion or even "liberation", is that the mental prison the Brahma Kumaris keep adherents trapped in is falsified and being continually revised and refined to keep people entrapped.

At no point have the leaders yet admitted this. Instead they invest their efforts into putting on a polished facade for outsiders supported by a certain sort of adherent which I call a "prefect caste" who willingly collaborates in the entrapment by repeating the leaders' falsehoods, and encouraging the mental enslavement of others.

jann

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Re: Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking

Post24 Nov 2013

"Invisible handcuffs".

If you read Murli you can see it is full of it! And that is just how the job is done.

Although new adherents are told it was written for the Kumaris back in time, they still practice it word by word when they are done, meaning totally indoctrinated.
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ex-l

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Re: Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking

Post24 Nov 2013

What amazes me is that they can "move the prison around" and the BK inmates keep moving with it.

I mean, to most people God is God and Truth is Truth and that is it ... but with the BKs they have kept changing what god and their truth is and the adherents just fall inline with whatever the latest spin is. They have no problem with the idea that "God" or the "Perfect Man" could say, e.g. the End of the World in 1976 ... and then celebrate their 75th anniversary in 2011 ... or that the population of the world was 4.5 billion human beings ... and now it is 7 billion.

Their mental prison is the "two to three years" they have been saying Destruction will come in since at least the 1970s, if not the 1930s. It's been working ever since the beginning.

It's worse than just what is in the Murlis, Jann. The degree of control and coercion that goes on one to one or in class with the Seniors, and through mutual confirmation, is tremendous ... but all achieved very subtly and gently. That is the interesting thing ... it's like "nudge" theory the politicians, progandists and marketing men are exploring now. They lead adherents to believe *they* themselves made the decision whereas the decision was really formed by the cult.

It's not done via "fire and brimestone" like the Bible Bashers.
    "Don't think, don't question, don't ask ... and don't ever challenge the Seniors".

jann

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Re: Brahma Kumaris: Domestic servitude and labor trafficking


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