Types of Stratification

• Closed systems:

  • ascribed statuses
  • lack of mobility; inflexible
  • Caste
  • Slavery
    • Modern slavery
      • still exists, human rights violations

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Caste systems depend upon endogamy, marriage within the group. Religious belief systems often support and perpetuate caste systems. Occupational structure also perpetuates caste stratification.

Caste systems were the normative order in India until modernization. The caste system still has an influence in Indian society- thousands of years of cultural history cannot be irradiated overnight; however, the power of caste is diminishing especially in urban areas and among well educated younger people. Nevertheless, it still has influence.

Slavery implies ownership and the treatment of the owned as property.

Although legal slavery no longer exists, in so far as slavery involves total control over the life of a person or persons and treatment of that person/s as property, slavery may still indeed exist.

Journalists have documented the trade in people in the Sudan and that slavery exists in Mauritania as well. Marcus Mabry, writing for Newsweek magazine, notes that "Freeing Sudan's slaves may be one of the world's most compelling human-rights crusades." http://www.newsweek.com/nw-srv/printed/int/wa/ov0218_1.htm

Two new books on the subject of modern slavery have been published: Silent Terror by Samuel Cotton details the plight of slaves in the Sudan and Disposable People by Kevin Bales (both books are available for purchase online at http://www.amazon.com ) or your local bookstore.

While Cotton describes the trade in people in the Sudan and the destruction of the Dinka culture. Balses takes a broader approach. He defines slavery as "total control of one person by another for the purpose of economic exploitation." With this definition about 27 million people worldwide are held in economic bondage that amounts to slavery. For example, Bales describes cases such as: child prostitutes in Thailand, slaves born under control of the White Moors in Mauritania, charcoal workers in Brazil, brick kiln operators in Pakistan, bonded farmers in India. He makes the argument that the new forms of slavery, in which people are disposable commodities to be worked until no more profit can be obtained from their labor, is directly connected to the new global economy.

According to the UN, "No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms." - Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948 - This web site: http://www.anti-slavery.org/ has a wealth of resources on the subject and an activism campaign underway to abolish slavery world wide. Efforts include the work of human rights groups, the NAACP, and in 1998 a fourth grade class in Colorado who raised 35,000 to free 601 people.