CCO 107 (TMA)

For our lesson on the slave trade, we have learnt that one of the ways the British empire gained it's economic power was from the use of Africans as their slaves. Slavery would mean the act of treating a person as if the said person is a property than a living being. How the British used their slaves would be through the use of trade know and the Atlantic slave trade. The trade works in a uni-directional way where the Europeans would trade manufactured goods in return for slaves at Africa. With the slaves obtained in Africa, the slaves were then delivered to Americas by slave ships to be auctioned as plantation workers. With the proceeds obtained from the auctions, they were used to purchase several commodities such as sugar, coffee, and tobacco that is to be delivered back to Europe. During my study of this topic, the picture below aided me greatly to get a fuller picture of how the route works.

Another slavery act could also be seen in South-East Asia where Chinese immigrant from China travelled to Singapore to search of better opportunities to earn more money. As these migrants realised the harsh conditions they are working on, they had to resort to entertainment such as gambling and opium consumption to lessen their stress. Most of the times these entertainment was operated by the same people who transported these Chinese immigrants to Singapore in order to profit from their low revenue businesses. How the British are able to profit from such businesses is allowing these operators to operate their gambling and opium dens in exchange for tax gains. As the cycle goes, these Chinese workers found themselves succumbing to the endless debt they have to pay off and being forced to serve these operators forever, effectively becoming their slaves.

Although slavery has already been abolished in our current times, other forms of slavery are still present in modern times which are more commonly know as human trafficking. As such, our TMA was to identify a type of human trafficking and explain about the origins and why it is still continuing in our present times. The topic that I had chosen would be on organ harvesting in China. Looking at the present times, the purpose of the harvest was due to it's profitability of such a trade. Due to China laws allowing the organ harvest of prisoners upon consent, we can see the number of executions in China being topped across the world. This indicates that organ harvesting in China might be a coercive act rather than a willing one. 

After writing the report, what I have picked up from the feedback was that the case of corruption can be further discussed to show the reason of the high execution rate that might have linked to the organ harvesting activities in China. This is something I think I could have explained more extensively that could show a more detailed insight of the organ harvesting issue in China. 

Overall, through the lesson of slavery, we can see how countries has prospered at the expense of the lives of many. Thus, through history, it allows us to see how success of some might have come at the price of the conscience and morals of one. As an individuals who is entering the accounting sector, it allows me to understand the importance of transparency in a company and how companies are earning their profits.