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ДОМАШНЕЕ ЧТЕНИЕ
Предмет: английский язык
тема :
“THE PEOPLE TRADE”
Выполнил : студент 2-го курса
208 группы очного отделения
специальности 0211 Чернов Вадим Александрович
Проверил: Cалеева Л.П.
г. САРАТОВ 2000
Статья из журнала NEWSWEEK JULY 3, 2000 : “THE PEOPLE TRADE”.
“THE PEOPLE TRADE”.
Special report.
Europe needs workers: immigrants want a better life. Inside the shadowy
– and dangerous – world of human smuggling.
Indide the customs office in Dover, England, a fax machine chirruped.
Out came a message from the European Pathway, a P&O Stena Line ferry
that was churning across the channel from Zeebrugge, Belgium. The crew
was dutifully alerting British authorities to a suspicious truck, a big
white Mercedes-Benz tractor hauling a refrigerator unit supposedly
filled with tomatoes. One of the last to board the ferry, the truck bore
the name Van Der Spek TRANSPORT. The name of the firm (it would later
emerge that the company was only four days old ) triggered misgivings –
perhaps because it was close, but not identical, to that of an
established Dutch trucking company. The track, said a British customs
spokesman, “fit the profile of one that could be used to smuggle
cigarettes, drugs or contraband… It was a hunch.”
It was just before midnight, Sunday, June 18, the hottest day of the
year, when the European Pathway pulled into Doverunder the city’s
landmark chalk cliffs. Customs officials were waiting for the Mercedes
truck as it trundled off the ferry. They told the driver to back into
Bay 9 of the inspection shed. Opening the big doors to the airtight
refrigeration container. they first came across pallets of crated
tomatoes. Muscling the tomatoes aside, the officers found one body. Then
they found another body, and then another and another. In all, they
found 54 dead men, four dead women and two traumatized men clinging to
life – all of them young Chinese, probably from Fujian province, who had
been headed to Britain in search of jobs. “I will never forget the sight
that greeted us when we opened the back doors,” one of the customs
inspectors said, “There were just piles and piles of bodies.”
The calamity in Dover shook not only Britain, where nothing on such a
scale, had ever happened before, but all of Europe. From the boot of
Italy to the bords of Norway, immigrants are entering Europe in record
numbers. Pushed out of their own countries by economic hardship or
political turmoil, they are drawn to Europe’s robust prosperity,
especially within the 15 countries of the European Union. “There is a
strategic equetion that produces a massive push to immigrate,” says
Jean-Claude Chesnais at the national institute for Demographic Studies
in Paris. Europe is relativelly small and very rich, with a population
that barely reproduces itself. “And all around – in the former Soviet
bloc, in Asia, in South Asia and Africa – you have massive poverty, an
absence of human rights and enermous population pressure, “says
Chesnais.
European business desperately needs foreign labor – at the high and low
ends of the skills scale. But the people of Europe are often
uncomfortable with foreign workers. In the eyes of the electorate, the
line between undocumented immigrants looking for jobs and asylum-seekers
looking for political protection can become blurred. This is especially
true if the man who slips into Britain to work illegally in a Soho
kitchen is likely to apply for asylum if he’s caught; most Europe
countries that feel prosperous. So last week in Dover grief over the
fate of the Chinese immigrants mixed with anger about the number of
people on the outside who seem to want in. “The hospitals are always
full of them and their children,” says Jonn Keith, a taxi driver. “They
are cloggin up the system. They just want everything for free.”
Politicans are caught between the demands of the bottom line and the
ballot box. “We are not in a position to be a lifeboat for the whole
world,” says Gwyn Prosser, Labour member of Parliament for Dover. In
Britain, the pressures on the Labour government to do somethinggare
mounting. Last year, the number of asylum seekers was up 55 percent over
1998, reflecting a steep rise in the number of people trying to enter
the country illegally. The government is responding by making the
lifeboat a little less comfortable – climinating, for instance, such
perks as cash benefits to anybody applying for asylum. In the particular
case of Chinese migrants, their numbers are also rising right now for
reasons that have nothing to do with Europe: the United States has
cracked down on illegal Chinese immigration, and Europe is taking up the
slack. The French experience is a case in point: the number of Chinese
seeking asylum in France in 1999 was double that of the year before.
People-smuggling networks are the travel agents of illegal immigration.
Their business is big and growing. The networks trafficking in Chinese
migrants alone are said to take in three billion dollars a year. As the
stakes and numbers rise, so do the risks. Last year 300000 undocumented
immigrants made it do Italy. Many died trying. So far this year 180
people are known to have died in Italian waters – often pushed into the
sea and left to drown by smugglers trying to lighten their boats to get
away from Italian coast-guard patrols. Four days before the deaths at
Dover, a Dutch organization, United for Intercultural Action, announced
that more than 2000 refugees and migrants have died trying to get to
Europe. Perhaps an incident like the death truck in Dover was
inevitable. “It is True you would treat your tomatoes better then [ the
smugglies ] treated these people,” says Wim De-Bruin, a spokesman for
the National Public Prosecutor’s Office in Rotterdam. “But the
difference is that with tomatoes and other goods, you get paid when you
deliver them in good condition.”
At the end of last week, the bodies found in Dover remained
unidentified. But British authorities believe the Chinese began their
journey in Fujian 30000 Dollars a head clients of an extensive smuggling
network that move them from home to the English Channel lush coastal
province in southeast China, Fujian is the main starting point on
China’s emigrant traik ( box). Fujian is by no means China’s poorest
province, but it sends an estimated 100000 emigrants abroad each year.
People call one town “widows’ village” because so many men have left
their women behind. The Pressure to leave Fujian is social as well as
economic. “It’s like if you are not a lazy person, then you shouldn’t be
in mainland China,” says Ko-Lin Chin , a professor at Rutgers University
in the United States. “People will say, “You’re not in your early 20s:
why are you still here?”
As news of what happened in Dover reached the province, grieving spread
quickly. Fujian has sent so many of its sons and daughters abroad that
nobody was sure who had perished or not in the death truck. He Xiaohong
was terrified that her 24 – year old husband, and odd job painter named
Cao Xianxin, was among the dead in Dover. On May 10 he left home for
Britain, comforted by a promise that on his long journey he would be “as
safe as a tourist.” He Xiaohong was in tears last week as she vowed: “If
my husband returns safely, he’ll have to beat me to death before I ever
let him travel abroad like this again.”
The journey to the West is called “sneaking across the water.” It’s
made possible by Fujainese guides known as “snakeheads.” They are
important figures in their homeland. “Everybody knows who the snakeheads
are,” says Chen Mei Xing, a Fijianese who slipped into England a few
weeks ago. “He’s a businessman with a very hihg status.” According to
USA authorities, snakeheads are also part of Chinese gangs known as
Triads or Tongs. They Charge as much as 60000 dollars for a trip to the
United States; half as much for Britain. Typically, a down payment of 5
to 19 percent is made up front. A migrant who uses the snakehead’s
services can spend years repaying the debt. The Fijianese who emigrate
see the fee as a smart investment. In the end Fujian benefits too.
Fujianese migrants pump large sums of money into the economy they left
behind. City officials in Changle ( population: 600000) estimate that
locals who have gone abroad put 100 million dollars back into the city’s
economy each year in remittances to their families and property
investments back home.
Not that long ago the destination more often than not was America (“The
beautiful country”). But in 1993 a freighter called the Golden Venture
ran aground off Long Island, and 10 Chinese immigrants drowned trying to
swim to shore. The incident promted a series of crackdowns by the U.S.
government. Thousands of Chinese still migrate to America – earlier this
year, three Fujiance were found dead in a shipping container in Seattle
– but some of the traffic had shifted to other countries.
Increasingly, Britain seems to be the alternative country of choice.
The largest Chinese community in Europe is there. Language is an
important draw. Even though the government is cutting back benefits,
they are still relatively generous: food vouchers (instead of cash) and
housing ( though asylum seekers can no longer choose where to live).
Another reason for the rise in asylum seekers to Britain is that Germany
has tightended up it is border controls. Anyone can claim asylum in
Germany and stay for years while the case goes through the courts. But
under a 1994 law German authorities can turn away refugees along it is
border before they set foot on German soil and have a chance to apply
for asylum. This has caused the annual number of refugees coming into
Germany to plunge from 513000 in 1993 to fewer than 100000 last year.
People – smuggling networks adjust quickly to such changes. In Fujian,
one family’s 18 years old son left home in April. Jin Xicai (not his
real name) wanted something more then this job repairing mobile phones
in Fujian. The family couldn’t afford to send him to the Unites States,
so it settled for the less costly trip to Britain. On April 3, Jin
hopped a train to Beijing, joining other would-be emigrants in the
capital. Snaakeheads had promised him a plane ride to Europe, but
instead Jin was hustled onto a train for the week – long trans –
Siberian trek to Moscow. He crossed the China – Russia border using a
genuine Chinese passport. It had been procured on the black market; the
original photograph had been carefully razored off and replaced by a
photo of Jin.
When Jin phoned home from Moscow; he said he was being held under armed
guard. Snakeheads had confiscated his documents, luggage and spare
clothes to prevent him from escaping. His next phone call came from
somewhere in the Czech Republic. To get there he had apparently traveled
by train, truck, even a horse – drawn cart. Then came a few more phone
calls – from Germany and, finally, Holland.
Краткое содержание.
“THE PEOPLE TRADE”.
Special report.
Europe needs workers: immigrants want a better life. Inside the shadowy
– and dangerous – world of human smuggling. People-smuggling networks
are the travel agents of illegal immigration. Their business is big and
growing. The networks trafficking in Chinese migrants alone are said to
take in three billion dollars a year.
Fujian – the most impotant place in the China, from people illegally
emigrate on west.
Fujian – the center of human smuggling. In the Asian countries life very
heavy and the people search of more worthy existence. They choose the
countries which are very rich and in which it is possible to earn. The
people try to get over through border by any ways. They are ready even
to go in inhuman conditions to get in other country. Many died trying.
The emigrants often choose England and Italy, as the country of the
future residing, but these countries do not want them to see at
themselves. Because many emigrants, which come, render harm to economy,
they fill in all hospitals, all parks, all premises of city, are engaged
in illegal earnings, and some who could not find job, become criminals.
England and Italy actively struggle against illegal entrance of the
emigrants on territory of the country.
It is favourable business – human smuggling. Many try on it to earn.
For the large money they promise to transport the people in other
countries, even without the documents. These organizations search for
ways to these countries not directly through China, and transit through
Russia or Czechia for example. Therefore it is very difficult to the
countries to trace a flow of the emigrants. Now countries of Europe have
a new task. To struggle not it is so much with the emigrants, how much
with organizations, which carry out an illegal way of emigration of the
people.
The end.
The dictionary:
Smuggling – контрабанда.
Suspicious – подозрительный.
Authorities – власти.
Hunch – догадка.
To trundle – ехать.
Piles – груды.
Calamity – бедствие.
Political turmoil – политическая суматоха.
Europe’s robust prosperity – здравое процветание Европы.
Desperately – отчаянно.
Asylum-seekers – ищущие убежища.
Blurred – cтертый.
Prosperous – преуспевающий.
Pressures – давления.
Lifeboat – cпасательная шлюпка.
Benefits – выгоды.
Slack – слабый.
Experience – опыт.
Trying to lighten – попытка облегчать.
Lush – пышный.
To estimate – оценивать.
Grieving – огорчение.
Terrified – испуганный.
Increasingly – все более и более.
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