Switzerland's child slaves

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

You have direct family experience of the scheme and so are much better placed to offer a view. Your mother had a good experience of the scheme, those quoted in the report had a very different one.

No, he doesn't. What he describes is something entirely different. The fact that he mentions a name in French suggests his mother came from one of the French-speaking cantons, which were the wealthier part of the country. The Verdingkinder were a feature of the dirt-poor, barely above substistence-level farming German-speaking cantons (which is why they are referred to by a Swiss German regionalism). Unless his mother's parents had their parental rights taken away, permanently, or were dead, and she was sold of at auction on a market to the lowest bidder who needed cheap farm labour (lowest bidder as in: the person who asked for the lowest amount of money from the canton which ran the scheme) , he has no direct family experience with the practice at all. At these markets, the children were put on display, and the prospective buyers could touch them to judge if they were good working stock.

It is entirely possible that these were a few isolated incidents and/or the views of someone whose experiences would always be coloured by their own attitudes.

So you think there might have been a few isolated incidents of abuse, but the scheme itself was sound and ethical?

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

The controversy doesn't strike me as too surprising: I'm sure it sparked a lot of friendships. At the same time, I'm sure it sparked a lot of abuse. People aren't robots.

You are sure. On the basis of what information? It sounds something like American slavery apologists claiming that most slaves were quite happy, and on friendly terms with their owners. Except that there were the occasional bad apples, who gave all the other good slave owners a bad name.

The real question is about the safety valve. What happened if the kid or host family just weren't getting along?

The kid got beaten into compliance. Nobody cared. They'd been legally acquired as cheap labour, and remained so until they were 18. In theory, there was some supervision, and if the owners of these children got too abusive, their right to have them could be taken away. In practice, nothing was ever done. You have to remember you're talking about sparsely populated, alpine areas, with isolated farms and some small villages. There barely is a government infrastructure, and certainly no permanent child care supervision.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

Also, the fact that women weren't allowed to vote until 1971.

At the federal level. At the cantonal level, which is were most government powers lie in Switzerland, the last holdout only gave women the vote in 1990. And by "gave", I mean they were forced to do so by a court ruling.

 

[The Don]

So you think there might have been a few isolated incidents of abuse, but the scheme itself was sound and ethical?

The short answer is that I'm not sure about the ethics of the system as a whole. The only knowledge I have is that BBC article and although it sounds terrible, I have no good way of telling whether the "16 hours a day and starved to sleep" was a typical experience, a rare example or even made up (I have colleagues who claim to work a 14 hour day, well I've been there with them and they're there for 10 hour tops including an hour for lunch and innumerable chat-breaks).

I suggest that there should be an investigation into the system and if necessary, action should be taken. Personally I think casebro is off the mark when he says that it sounds like the old days in the US when kids from the city used to spend their time on a cousin's farm. This seems much more organised and institutional which leaves more scope for abuse.

Then again, if there is a full investigation and it is found that there was wide-scale abuse of the system and the children caught up in it, what then ? As a minimum I feel there should be a full state apology but should there also be reparations for destroyed lives (and compensation from farmers ?). In the UK we did apologise:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/24/child-migrant-programme-slavery

 

[carlitos]

At the federal level. At the cantonal level, which is were most government powers lie in Switzerland, the last holdout only gave women the vote in 1990. And by "gave", I mean they were forced to do so by a court ruling.

Yikes. I am personally familiar with German cultural chauvinism, but wow. 1990?

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Then again, if there is a full investigation and it is found that there was wide-scale abuse of the system and the children caught up in it, what then ? As a minimum I feel there should be a full state apology but should there also be reparations for destroyed lives (and compensation from farmers ?).

There was an official apology. Financial reparations are still being discussed; no idea how that's looking to turn out.

In the UK we did apologise:

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2010/feb/24/child-migrant-programme-slavery

Sounds very similar.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Yikes. I am personally familiar with German cultural chauvinism, but wow. 1990?

Switzerland isn't German.
In Germany (and Austria) Women could vote beginning in 1918/19 with the end of the Monarchies.

 

[carlitos]

Thanks. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I meant to be - I said German "cultural" chauvinism. I'm pretty sure that we're discussing the German-speaking cantons. Maybe I'm generalizing, but I know some German (in Germany) chauvinists, and I've also experienced German (Swiss) chauvinism, with a family friend. Obviously, this is anecdotal, but, in Germany at least, there is linguistic evidence. I forget the term, but it's something like "bird women" - women who have kids but choose to work.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

Obviously, this is anecdotal, but, in Germany at least, there is linguistic evidence. I forget the term, but it's something like "bird women" - women who have kids but choose to work.

"Rabenmütter", literally "raven mothers". Based on the myth that ravens eject their offspring from the nest after hatching.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

The short answer is that I'm not sure about the ethics of the system as a whole. The only knowledge I have is that BBC article and although it sounds terrible, I have no good way of telling whether the "16 hours a day and starved to sleep" was a typical experience, a rare example or even made up (I have colleagues who claim to work a 14 hour day, well I've been there with them and they're there for 10 hour tops including an hour for lunch and innumerable chat-breaks).

The problem is that there's a language barrier: most material on the web about them is in German. The German Wikipedia article also explains that such schemes extended over the Swiss border into southern Germany, where in Swabia there were, until 1921, "children's markets", where primarily children from dirt-poor alpine mineworkers, including Swiss and Austrian ones, were auctioned off as cheap forced labour.

But sometimes, a picture can indeed replace a thousand words, without translation. Here's a picture to ponder:
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/Waisenkinder/verdingkinder.jpg
It shows a group of Verdingkinder being used as draught animals, pulling a plough.

As a minimum I feel there should be a full state apology but should there also be reparations for destroyed lives (and compensation from farmers ?).

There is a fund set up to help the few tens of thousands of people still alive who suffered under the scheme, but not all cantons or the federal government seem eager to contribute.

 

[smartcooky]

No, he doesn't. What he describes is something entirely different. The fact that he mentions a name in French suggests his mother came from one of the French-speaking cantons, which were the wealthier part of the country.

Good call. She came from Vaud

People may regard Switzerland as a single country, and Federally it is, but within the country itself, the French speaking part and the Schweizerdeutsch speaking part are like two different countries, especially in social and political attitudes. The Suisse Francais are more like the French.

This was perhaps less-so now, but was certainly more so in the past.

 

[jimbob]

So what year is "well into the 209th century" ? 75 years ago?

Well into the 20th Century - and well into the time when Switzerland was a prosperous country.

There was no official decision to end the use of contract children. Seglias says it just naturally started to die out in the 1960s and 70s. As farming became mechanised, the need for child labour vanished. But Switzerland was changing too. Women got the vote in 1971 and attitudes towards poverty and single mothers moved on.

I found an exceptionally late case in a remote part of Switzerland. In 1979, Christian's mother was struggling. Recently divorced from a violent husband she needed support.

 

[GnaGnaMan]

Thanks. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I meant to be - I said German "cultural" chauvinism. I'm pretty sure that we're discussing the German-speaking cantons. Maybe I'm generalizing, but I know some German (in Germany) chauvinists, and I've also experienced German (Swiss) chauvinism, with a family friend. Obviously, this is anecdotal, but, in Germany at least, there is linguistic evidence. I forget the term, but it's something like "bird women" - women who have kids but choose to work.

Ahh, I understand now.
"Rabenmutter" is indeed the term. It only means a neglectful mother, though, not necessarily one who works. I have heard the argument, though, that fear of being a "Rabenmutter" dissuades german women from either pursuing careers or having children. I don't know if there is anything to that. Workplace equality In G is behind the US or UK, though, AFAIK.
FWIW the total fertility rate in Germany is 1.4 children per woman, about as many as Austria, Switzerland or Italy (ie it's not unusual for Europe).

 

[casebro]

It an unfortunate fact of our society that child sexual abuse happens in numerous places, at school, in care, in the home, in church, at the homes of family and friends etc.

That sexual abuse may have taken place while some children were on "farm duty" is no more an indictment of "farm duty" than sexual abuse suffered at school is an indictment on education.

Hey, maybe we should start a thread about all the Good Things that have had all their good regulated out because of a bit of bad press?

Ideas like mythical Child Abduction turning parents into Helicopter Moms, and kids being raised to not be independent? Kids never left alone to establish their own pecking orders.

The loss of the JROTC programs in high schools that used to teach gun safety to kids.

Smart people here, I'm sure we can point out more.

 

[FromBelgiumWithLove]

There was no official decision to end the use of contract children. Seglias says it just naturally started to die out in the 1960s and 70s. As farming became mechanised, the need for child labour vanished. But Switzerland was changing too. Women got the vote in 1971 and attitudes towards poverty and single mothers moved on.

Another perhaps interesting point: until 1945, the system was entirely unregulated, and based on unwritten local tradition. The authorities simply took whatever children they wanted, and there were no qualifications for the "foster" families needed. Only after 1945, some minimal rules were put into place, but without a functioning oversight system could happily be ignored.

 

[Minoosh]

I've never really understood how a country could be neutral in Nazi Europe.

 

[MG1962]

I've never really understood how a country could be neutral in Nazi Europe.

Terrain, neutrality, and positioning yourself in such a way it suited everyone to leave you be

 

[ddt]

I've never really understood how a country could be neutral in Nazi Europe.

Switzerland mobilized and made it clear to Germany it would sell its hide dearly. And it compromised, e.g., by letting Nazis stash their gold there. And nobody, not even the Nazis, particularly likes to try to occupy mountainous terrain with a hostile population (see Yugoslavia).

 

[MG1962]

Switzerland mobilized and made it clear to Germany it would sell its hide dearly. And it compromised, e.g., by letting Nazis stash their gold there. And nobody, not even the Nazis, particularly likes to try to occupy mountainous terrain with a hostile population (see Yugoslavia).

And it is largely lost today but in terms of military excellence the Swiss were the German army of their day

 

[Rat]

Thanks. Maybe I wasn't as clear as I meant to be - I said German "cultural" chauvinism. I'm pretty sure that we're discussing the German-speaking cantons. Maybe I'm generalizing, but I know some German (in Germany) chauvinists, and I've also experienced German (Swiss) chauvinism, with a family friend. Obviously, this is anecdotal, but, in Germany at least, there is linguistic evidence. I forget the term, but it's something like "bird women" - women who have kids but choose to work.

Are you using 'chauvinism' to mean 'sexism' or something like it? I would associate actual chauvinism (excessive patriotism) with Americans at least as much as Germans.