Slaves Of Brixton: The Three Women Weren’t Slaves But Lived In A Free Collective
MORE news on the three women kept as “slaves” in a flat on Peckford Place, Stockwell, south London.
Before we go on, can we look at what it is to be a slave? A slave is surely a human reduced to the role of a transactional good who when sold becomes the legal property of another person. Were these three women slaves in that sense? If they were, who sold them and under whose law were they owned?
Today we learn that the older women – the 57-year-old Irish woman and a 69-year-old Malaysian – were in a “political collective with the captor”. The 30-year-old is believed to have lived in servitude her entire life. Was she a slave. She had been issued with a birth certificate. Who issued it? What nurse checked the ‘slaves’ over?
Metropolitan police commander Steve Rodhouse says the two older women shared a political ideology with the male suspect. He and the female suspect are both 67 and of Indian and Tanzanian origin. They arrived in the UK in the 1960s.
Rodhouse says the women were taken into care on October 25. That was kept secret. Why?
“Part of the agreement on 25 October when they were removed from the suspects’ address was that police would not at that stage take any action. Since that date we have been working to gain their trust and evidence. That came to fruition on 21 November, when we were in a position to make arrests… The people involved, the nature of that collective and how it operated is all subject to our investigation and we are slowly and painstakingly piecing together more information… Somehow that collective came to an end and … somehow the women ended up continuing to live with the suspects. How this resulted in the women living in this way for over 30 years is what are seeking to establish, but we believe emotional and physical abuse has been a feature of all the victims’ lives.”
So. Not slaves at all, then. More women abused by mendacious nutters, allegedly.
Posted: 23rd, November 2013 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
