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Switzerland's child slaves

Information Analyst

Penultimate Amazing
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BBC News - Switzerland's shame: The children used as cheap farm labour

"Thousands of people in Switzerland who were forced into child labour are demanding compensation for their stolen childhoods. Since the 1850s hundreds of thousands of Swiss children were taken from their parents and sent to farms to work - a practice that continued well into the 20th Century."

Genuinely surprised not to have heard of this before, but clearly this is no great revelation, gived that there is even a Wikipedia page: Verdingkinder
 
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So...the parents were held back as their children were taken kicking and screaming?

Trying to see here where it lies on difference between slavery and the modern conceit of a wealthy society that does not need children to work to help the family survive defining history that made them, as gosh, awful.
 
I saw this on BBC. One quote struck me - that Switzerland wasn't a wealthy country before WW2. Also, the fact that women weren't allowed to vote until 1971. Having just read about the Magdalene laundries, I couldn't help but draw parallels.
 
I think the difference is that rather than that the children had to work on their parents' farm to support their own family, they were taken by agents of the state to perform unpaid labor for complete strangers.
 
Beerina said:
So...the parents were held back as their children were taken kicking and screaming?
ul.
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According to the linked story, yes.

Parents who complained or physically tried to recover the child could face sanctions up to imprisonment.
 
So what year is "well into the 209th century" ? 75 years ago?
 
Beerina said:
So...the parents were held back as their children were taken kicking and screaming?

Trying to see here where it lies on difference between slavery and the modern conceit of a wealthy society that does not need children to work to help the family survive defining history that made them, as gosh, awful.
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This was Switzerland: everyone involved did it out of a sense of civil duty.
 
Giordano said:
This was Switzerland: everyone involved did it out of a sense of civil duty.
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I agree.

My mum was Swiss (b1927). I have lots of photographs of her as a child working on a farm, but I know my grandparents (who lived in Territet near Montreux) were not farmers. (Grandpapa was a radio engineer)

As related to me by Mum, this was just a normal part of growing up, nothing sinister about it, and most kids her age (she was 10/11) were excited about going off to stay and work on a farm. Its what you did; they even had a name for it, "devoir agricole" (or something like that) which literally meant "farm duty".

The duties apparently consisted mostly of feeding chickens and geese, and milking cows, and it was more about widening experiences for the children involved rather than slave labouring them for the farmer. Mum met a girl at the farm she stayed at and they become lifelong friends.
 
Sounds like the old practice in America of the city cousin spending summers on the farm.
 
casebro said:
Sounds like the old practice in America of the city cousin spending summers on the farm.
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There seem to be a number of significant differences if the story is to be believed.

According to the story, the labour was provided to strangers rather than members of the family AND the child's family was required to pay to send their child away. If the story is to be believed then the children were required to work 16 hours a day - I'm not sure that a family would work their city cousins so hard and - food was withheld as a punishment if the children didn't work hard enough.

There are also allegations of sexual abuse:

Mostly it was farms that children were sent to, but not always. Sarah (not her real name) had been in institutions from birth, but in 1972, at the age of nine, she was sent to a home in a village, where she was expected to clean the house. She did that before and after school, and at night cleaned offices in nearby villages for her foster mother. She was beaten regularly by the mother, she says, and from the age of 11 was sexually abused by the sons at night.
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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29765623

That said, the same abuses also happen in families so it could just be that a handful of atypical experiences have been used to taint a scheme which allowed thousands of urban children a taste of the countryside.
 
And farm families still work 16 hour days. If you believe the 'rural myth'.

Of course the self employed in the city often work long hours.
 
casebro said:
And farm families still work 16 hour days. If you believe the 'rural myth'.
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And it's typical that city cousins would be expected to work 16 hours a day and would have food withheld if they didn't work those hours ? Maybe my father's experiences were the exceptional ones (his experience of summers on the farm in upstate New York are more like smartcooky's mother's).

As I said in my earlier post, a few exceptional experiences may have been used to tarnish the reputation of a scheme which provided much needed farm labour and allowed city kids the opportunity to get some fresh country air. Then again it could be as big a child abuse scandal as British orphans (and "orphans") being sent to Canada and Australia as indentured labour.

I suppose time will tell which of the two it is.
 
The Don said:
There are also allegations of sexual abuse:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29765623

That said, the same abuses also happen in families so it could just be that a handful of atypical experiences have been used to taint a scheme which allowed thousands of urban children a taste of the countryside.
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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.
 
smartcooky said:
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.
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I understand this. The question I have is whether the reported case of sexual abuse was an isolated incident or whether there was a more organised system of child abuse hidden within the scheme. The (to me very biased, at least as it appears on the BBC website) seems to imply that the abuse was widespread, rather like the alleged abuse in the UK care system.

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. 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.
 
smartcooky said:
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.
Click to expand...

I understand this. The question I have is whether the reported case of sexual abuse was an isolated incident or whether there was a more organised system of child abuse hidden within the scheme. The (to me very biased, at least as it appears on the BBC website) seems to imply that the abuse was widespread, rather like the alleged abuse in the UK care system.

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. 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.


edited to add......

It would be an indictment of the scheme if, like the allegations of child abuse in care in the UK, the widespread allegations were swept under the table and the alleged molesters were allowed to continue their alleged abuse unhindered.
 
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.

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