Amazon Takes Down "Slavery Gets Shit Done" Merchandise After Public Outrage

Amazon quickly pulled a line of products from a third-party seller bearing the slogans "Slavery gets shit done" and "Slavery makes shit happen," after the retailer was criticized by shoppers and advocacy groups for trivializing slavery - a practice which continues to this day especially in nations "liberated" by the US.

Charities Anti-Slavery International (ASI) and International Justice Mission (IJM) UK lodged formal complaints over the line of T-shirts, mugs, baby bibs, tote bags and other items carried by the Marketplace seller.

"Children the same age as those modelling the T-shirts will be forced to work long hours for no pay in desperate conditions where starvation, beatings and sleep deprivation are common," said David Westlake, chief executive of IJM UK.

"If it is meant to be funny, it fails miserably," Jakub Sobik of Anti-Slavery International told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

A spokesman for Anti Slavery International told MailOnline:

"I understand this is meant to be a joke, but slavery is no joke for the 40 million people who are experiencing it right now, including here in Britain. 

Slavery includes girls trafficked into prostitution or boys forced to work in sweatshops. They may be 'getting sh*t done' but I don't think they would find the t-shirt particularly funny."

There are an estimated 21 - 46 million slaves around the world today, subject to forced labor, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude. India has the highest actual number of slaves at an estimated 18.3 million people, however North Korea topping the list on a per-capita basis.

 

A spokesman for Amazon said: "All Marketplace sellers must follow our selling guidelines and those who don't will be subject to action including potential removal of their account," adding "The products in question are no longer available."

Comments

wtftech Jan 25, 2018 6:36 PM Permalink

Next century they will say,
how aweful being an employee-worker was, worse than a slave as the robots perform all labor. They will look down on the past as wrong for people to do anything themselves without holding mommys tit.

Those poor people in 2000 didnt have anything, they would work and sleep outside and had nothing in the end. Poor saps.

gammab0y Jan 25, 2018 6:38 PM Permalink

 Cue Twitterstorm full of no-skin-in-the -game virtue signaling.

 

 And the graphic is of the pyramids. So who exactly should be triggered by this?  Hittites?

armageddon addahere Jan 25, 2018 6:40 PM Permalink

It's not even true. Frederick Law Olmstead travelled 20,000 miles through the south in the 1850s doing a survey of conditions in slave states. He found slave labor was 3X or 4X more costly than free labor because slaves don't get things done. As a farmer in New York state who employed farm laborers he was a good judge of costs and efficiency and what he saw in the south indicated the slave system was very expensive, and produced inferior results for all but a small handful of slave owners (the 1% of that time).

heavens-door DEMIZEN Jan 25, 2018 6:50 PM Permalink

I don't know about on Amazon but if you really want one the people who first came out with this slavery design was tshirthell dot com about 20 years ago. I'm sure its still a bestseller and its still available there.  They have a bunch of other great designs too.

In reply to by DEMIZEN

MusicIsYou Jan 25, 2018 6:49 PM Permalink

Slavery does get shit done. Look at all the dope American slaves of the 20th Century. Living in all their "Little Pink Houses. Back in the U.S back in the U.S back in the USSR."