Filósofo, escritor político e intelectual alemán. Es ampliamente conocido por su análisis crítico del capitalismo global y las estructuras de poder contemporáneas. Es miembro del consejo de la Asociación Mundial de Economía Política (WAPE) y del consejo editorial de World Marxist Review (Londres/Shaanxi). Obtuvo su doctorado en filosofía y antropología en 1978 y, desde entonces, ha trabajado como autor, conferenciante y consultor en Colonia, Alemania. Se describe a sí mismo como un “filósofo intervencionista”, enfatizando la responsabilidad de los intelectuales de participar activamente en los debates políticos y económicos. Desde, Rügemer ha abordado la relación entre el capital y el trabajo, la expansión geopolítica del capitalismo liderado por Estados Unidos, la influencia de las instituciones financieras y las corporaciones multinacionales, así como la transformación de los estados de bienestar en Europa. También es reconocido por sus investigaciones sobre el poder e influencia de las agencias de calificación crediticia, firmas de inversión globales como BlackRock y las consultoras transnacionales en la formulación de políticas públicas. Su obra adopta constantemente una perspectiva crítica y antiimperialista, examinando cómo el dominio económico y el poder militar se entrelazan en la construcción del orden global.
Many millions of women are exploited in ways that violate human rights —and their situation is often rendered invisible. Awareness and resistance must be connected and organized across borders. This is a call to action. Millions of women are subjected to forms of modernized slave labor that are constantly expanding while remaining largely hidden. These systems are organized primarily by U.S. corporations operating in poorer countries across all continents. This applies to prostitution, of course, but not only to the textile and food industries. It also extends to the production of digital devices such as laptops and cell phones, to “content deletion” work in social media, to the manufacturing of electric vehicles, and to robotics and AI-related technologies.(1)
Even when particularly criminal forms of slave labor briefly become public, they are often quickly suppressed, even in already well-known sectors. One example is the situation of Indian sugar workers producing for companies such as Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Unilever, and General Mills. The beginning of the sugar production chain in India lies in small plantations. The workers live directly in the sugar fields. The workers —mostly very young women— are often forced to undergo hysterectomies so that pregnancy or childbirth will not interrupt their work. They must pay for the operation themselves and frequently fall into debt in order to do so, which makes them even more vulnerable to coercion and blackmail, while earning minimum wages starting at about $2 per day. Many spend years trying to repay these debts.
Corrupt Certificate Business: Bonsucro
Sugar buyers such as Coca-Cola and Unilever know this, which is why they purchase certificates from professional certificate issuers. These certificates attest that the supply chain meets “our social standards.” Coca Cola, Unilever & Co. then go public with this: “We comply with our social standards” —they don’t mention the specific human rights, labor rights, and social rights of the UN/ILO anyway.
In the case of these Indian sugar workers, the certificates were issued by the certification company Bonsucro. Bonsucro means “good sugar”: Bonsucro developed its methods in Brazil, the largest sugar-producing country, hence the name. The certification company is based in London and has its own chain of paid certificate issuers who carry out inspections “on site” in countries such as India.
Corrupt Certificate Supply Chain
But what does “on site” actually mean? India is the second-largest sugar producer in the world after Brazil, with thousands of small and medium-sized plantations. This already forms a complex production chain in itself. The term “supply chain” is somewhat misleading here, because production —often under extremely harsh physical conditions— must take place before any supply can occur!
When a Bonsucro auditor is asked to issue a certificate, the inspector often visits a plantation already known to function as a showcase location. After an appointment is arranged, the cooperating plantation prepares for the visit. On that day, everything appears perfectly in order. Workers smile as instructed, and the foreman confirms to the inspector: “The workers are very satisfied.”
Bonsucro represents a typical example of institutionalized consulting corruption. Like many similar organizations, it originally began as a human-rights-oriented non-profit initiative. Later, it was financially supported by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). With the reputational capital gained from its human-rights origins, the initiative gradually developed into a profitable private certification business —a trajectory similar to that of many NGOs supported by major philanthropic foundations such as Gates, Soros/Open Society, Carnegie, Lilly, and Bloomberg.
Exposing Corruption — No Consequences
In one unusual case, a local Indian authority conducted an independent investigation and interviewed 82,000 sugar workers, documenting both slave-like labor conditions and child labor. For a brief period, this became a public scandal. It was reported twice in The New York Times in 2024: “How Audits Missed Abuses in India’s Fields,” published on August 1, and “Revelations Roil Sugar Industry,” published on August 23.
However, the revelations ultimately had little impact in the United States or in Western political discourse more broadly. The issue was not widely taken up in the European Union (EU) or in Germany, neither by governments nor by the EU itself. Nor was it pursued by major media outlets, despite their daily monitoring of The New York Times. Even initiatives that have long worked on supply-chain accountability remained largely silent. Women’s movements, too, were mostly absent from the debate.
Modern slave labor, especially affecting women, also exists within capitalist countries themselves, particularly in major metropolitan centers. In fact, this system originates in these economies and is rendered invisible not only globally but also domestically.
USA: Illegal Women as Pillars of the Economy
Low-wage female workers —both documented and undocumented— are an essential pillar of the economy, especially in the United States, where they perform physically demanding and poorly paid work. They pay taxes, yet they are simultaneously threatened with deportation and kept in precarious, low-visibility jobs.
This is particularly evident in at least 22 sectors, including slaughterhouses, agriculture, office services, fast food, catering, hospitality services, medical assistance, personal care, private households, home care, domestic care, and animal care. Even full-time employment often results in poverty, and this is even more the case for the part-time jobs that dominate many of these sectors. Workers survive on minimal public assistance such as food stamps, often without health insurance. This situation disproportionately affects women who are not white. The lower their social status, the more directly they experience structural racism.
These conditions have persisted under both Democratic and Republican administrations. They existed under presidents such as Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden, and they also continue under Donald Trump, who openly pursues anti-immigrant policies. Since 2014, the proportion of women in low-wage jobs that violate human rights standards has increased by approximately 25%.(2)
Germany: “The Brothel of Europe”
Within the European Union, including Germany, millions of people work in low-wage jobs that violate basic labor and human rights standards. This is common in sectors such as construction, delivery services, security, catering, seasonal agricultural labor, tourism, and domestic care. Such conditions have become a normalized feature of EU labor markets.
Many of these modern slaves have legal employment status, but a large proportion remain undocumented. In Germany, 40,400 prostitutes were officially registered under the Prostitute Protection Act before the COVID-19 pandemic. After the pandemic, the number fell to 32,300. However, the unregistered and hidden sector is estimated to be up to ten times larger. Since the pandemic, the industry has become even more difficult to monitor, as activities have increasingly moved from brothels to private apartments.
Many of these young women —sexually exploited and often coming from precarious social backgrounds— are controlled by mafia-like criminal networks. They come mainly from Eastern Europe (including Ukraine) and from parts of Asia. As a result, critics have described Germany as the “brothel of Europe,” a development that occurred during the four-term chancellorship of Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and often portrayed as a politically emancipated female leader.(3)
Ukraine: World Leader in Industrial Surrogacy
In many respects, Ukraine has functioned as a major economic “labor reservoir” since gaining independence in 1991, particularly for Western companies supported by the United States and the European Union. Thousands of suppliers to Western automotive, textile, pharmaceutical, and agricultural companies have taken advantage of the country’s extremely low legal minimum wage, which remained below €1 per hour until 2019 and is now around €1.06. These conditions have also made Ukraine a global center for industrialized surrogacy —a practice that has continued even during wartime. The poverty and unemployment experienced by many women create a large and vulnerable pool of potential surrogate mothers.
Agencies such as Vittoria Vita, La Vita Nova, Delivering Dreams, and BioTexCom —based primarily in Kyiv and Kharkiv— advertise their services worldwide. Their online catalogs promote Ukrainian women as surrogate mothers for wealthy foreign clients. Many of these “reproductive tourists” come from the United States, Canada, and Western Europe.(4)
Prospective parents provide eggs and sperm to specialized clinics, where fertilization takes place in vitro. The resulting embryo —genetically unrelated to the surrogate mother— is then implanted into her uterus.
This practice was originally developed and legalized in the United States, but the procedure is far more expensive there, typically costing between $110,000 and $240,000. In Ukraine, regulations are weaker and costs significantly lower, partly because women’s reproductive labor is much cheaper. A “complete surrogacy package” typically costs between €39,900 and €64,900.
Prices also vary depending on whether parents request gender selection. For example, BioTexCom advertises packages at €39,900 without gender selection, €49,900 with two attempts to achieve a desired gender, and €64,900 with unlimited attempts. These packages typically include hotel accommodation, the issuance of a birth certificate, and assistance obtaining a passport through the relevant consulate.
The surrogate mother receives a monthly payment of approximately €300–€400 during pregnancy, and after the successful delivery of the baby, she may receive a final payment of up to €15,000. However, if a miscarriage occurs, if the child is born with disabilities, or if the commissioning parents refuse to accept the baby, the surrogate mother may receive no payment at all.(5)
In today’s U.S.-led capitalism, Apple is one of the richest companies in terms of profits and market value. The largest Apple shareholder groups are the biggest capital organizers, such as BlackRock and Vanguard. Their annual billions in profits also derive from global systems of slave-like labor involving millions of people, especially women.
21 Million Employees in 1,121 Suppliers
The number of workers laboring under such conditions within Apple’s supply chain is unknown, as Apple itself keeps this information confidential. No government regulatory agency appears to systematically investigate the issue.
Apple has reported a limited review of labor rights among 1,121 suppliers in 53 countries. According to the company, 21 million employees have been informed about their rights.(6) However, these limited rights do not correspond to the international labor standards defined by the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO). The rights defined by Apple itself state, for example, that employees may work up to 60 hours per week, must receive one day off every seven days, and should receive “fair” wages.
Apple does not explain how —or whether— compliance with these minimal and vaguely defined standards is monitored by authorities on site. The company prefers countries, regions, and special economic zones where regulatory oversight is weak or absent.
Apple: Tens of Thousands of Suppliers
Apple maintains global supply chains with tens of thousands of suppliers across almost every continent, including more than 800 suppliers in Germany.(7) For more than a decade —since around 2009— Apple has had its iPhones manufactured primarily in China, where wages were extremely low within the broader post-colonial global economic structure.However, wages in China have gradually increased, despite strong resistance from corporations such as Apple and its partners.(8)
For this reason, Apple has increasingly shifted production away from China over the past decade. Since the iPhone 12, a growing share of iPhones has been manufactured in India. Apple is now approaching the production cycle of the iPhone 17.
Taiwan: Development of the Most Modern Slave Labor
Apple does not operate a single factory of its own. Instead, it contracts production to the three largest electronics manufacturing service companies in the world: Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron.
These corporations are based in Taiwan. In the United States-protected political environment of Taiwan, one of the most advanced models of industrialized labor discipline was developed in the 1980s, initially under martial law and in close connection with Silicon Valley corporations.
Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron later expanded internationally, establishing production facilities in Japan, South Korea, and especially China, and more recently shifting operations to Vietnam, the Philippines, Thailand, Laos, and particularly India.(9)
Foxconn: World Leader in Modernized Slave Labor
Foxconn is Taiwan’s largest corporation, employing approximately 1.3 million people worldwide. The model of modern industrial labor discipline first developed in Taiwan continues to operate there today, although on a smaller scale, including in local semiconductor factories.
There are currently around 830,000 migrant workers in Taiwan, the majority of whom are women. They are recruited from poorer Asian countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Thailand.
Compared to regular Taiwanese employees, these migrant workers occupy an inferior legal and social status, including within Foxconn facilities:
This sophisticated labor model has been exported globally by Foxconn, Pegatron, and Wistron. Together they organize a vast and largely invisible workforce of millions of laborers worldwide.
Foxconn receives major production orders for digital devices manufactured for Western technology corporations, including laptops, cell phones, headphones, graphics cards, smart watches, voice assistants (such as Alexa), circuit boards, power supplies, connectors, heat sinks, housings, game consoles, and motherboards.
These orders come primarily from U.S. technology corporations, including Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Meta (Facebook), Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Intel, Amazon, Alphabet (Google), Cisco, Motorola, and Netflix, as well as from military contractors.
Monitored Mass Accommodation
Foxconn & Co. keep the slave workers in mass accommodation monitored day and night, in shared rooms, often with bunk beds, in residential complexes housing many thousands of female slave workers. The residential complexes are cut off from the outside world and can only be left with special permission. The use of cell phones is prohibited.
Foxconn also provides food and organizes daily transportation from the mass accommodation to the factory. Work is carried out in three shifts, including on Saturdays.
3. iPhones for Apple in India
Today this model is most widely implemented in Asia, particularly in India, the world’s most populous country. India provides one of the largest reservoirs of unemployed and impoverished workers, many of them young women, who are often preferred for labor-intensive manufacturing in the digital electronics sector.
India does not have a single nationwide minimum wage. Wages may begin at around $0.30 per hour and reach approximately €1 per hour, depending on the state, region, special economic zone, and industry. Government policy actively encourages foreign investment through low wages and limited regulatory oversight.
Young Women: 88 Cents per Hour with Deductions
Foxconn operates many of its Indian factories in the southern state of Tamil Nadu, particularly in the special economic zone near the city of Chennai. In the lowest positions the workforce consists almost entirely of women, most of them between 18 and 23 years old. They are recruited by labor agencies operating in some of India’s poorest regions. In many cases, impoverished families agree to send their daughters to these factories.
Foxconn pays approximately 88 cents per hour, but only part of this amount is actually received by the workers. Expenses for food, dormitory accommodation, and daily bus transportation are deducted directly from their wages.
Sick and Replaced After Three Years
The three-shift production system, the barracks-like dormitories, the restricted social environment, limited health care, poor-quality food, and the daily transportation between dormitories and factories —even at night— often lead to exhaustion and illness among workers. As a result, many women are replaced after only a few years, while recruitment agencies bring in new groups of young workers from poorer regions.(11)
Workers have very limited means of defending themselves. They are not allowed to join independent unions, and many do not possess formal employment contracts. However, external unions supported a strike in 2021, when several thousand of the 17,000 workers at a Foxconn factory in Chennai left the factory without permission and blocked nearby roads. Following the protest, conditions in the dormitories were somewhat improved.
Trump: Bring Production Back to the US! Apple Is Not Following Suit
This type of globalization has been promoted by U.S. administrations since the 1990s, especially by Democratic presidents William Clinton, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden. Recently, Biden signed an agreement with Indian Prime Minister Modi in 2024: Foxconn built a new 12-story building in Chennai with shared rooms for 37,000 young women. Due to protests, the rooms now have only six beds and no longer contain bunk beds.(12)
U.S. President Trump has called on Apple to bring the production of iPhones and other devices back to the U.S. —but Apple & Co. have had no problem ignoring their president’s demands: they co-financed his election campaigns and later his presidential inauguration at the White House. Thus, slavery continues, including within the U.S. itself.
U.S. Capitalists in Apple and Foxconn
The slave labor of Apple/Foxconn is a form of organization typical of the most modern, richest, and most brutal form of U.S.-led capitalism:
Under U.S. President Biden, BlackRock became the coordinator for the postwar “reconstruction” of Ukraine at the beginning of the war. BlackRock CEO Laurence Fink therefore enthused at the 2023 World Economic Forum in Davos: We believe in Ukraine’s victory, and after the war Ukraine will be “a beacon in the world for the power of capitalism.”(13)
BlackRock CEO Fink is also part of the Trump administration’s Ukraine negotiating team in 2026. Over the next decade, BlackRock is to invest or coordinate $800 billion in Ukraine for this “capitalist beacon,” including investment in the latest drone technology, now also tested in war.(14)
In addition, zero-hour contracts are permitted in Ukraine —a form of on-call work. This means that the number of working hours and income can sometimes be zero. There is no requirement to provide reasons for dismissals.
Trump/BlackRock also promise many new jobs through this “reconstruction.” That is why the legal minimum wage in Ukraine was increased on January 1, 2026: it now stands at $1.23 per hour, or €1.06.(15) A “beacon” —for BlackRock & Co.
Modern slave labor, with the majority of workers being women and young women, is part of an increasingly aggressive, war-preparing and war-waging system of the U.S. —led Western capitalism, which is investing even more aggressively as a result: in the profitably destroyed Ukraine, in Congo, and in the profitably destroyed Gaza Strip (Trump: “The Riviera of the Middle East”).
At the same time, this slave labor is tabooed and concealed within the ruling class’s production of lies: not only by corporations and their shareholders, but also by governments, the EU, political parties, and even established trade unions.
But in India and in all the affected countries, trade unions, left-wing parties, and initiatives are active, including internationally networked trade unions such as UNIA, IndustriALL, and UNI Global (based in Switzerland).
Such initiatives exist in all countries, including the U.S., as well as in poorer countries in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. In Germany, labournet Germany, the Dortmund Trade Union Forum, the Hamburg Trade Union Left, and others have been active for many years. Similar initiatives also exist in EU countries, in the west, east, north, and south.(16) What if women’s movements were to join them as well?How could joint action become possible? Such cooperation would simultaneously oppose the wars, war preparations, and regime changes currently being led by the U.S. government under Donald Trump and carried out by its obedient accomplices, such as the German BlackRock chancellor Friedrich Merz.
The struggle for labor and social rights —including the struggle against the rampant modern slave labor affecting women— is part of the broader struggle for peace, democracy, justice, and security!
Rügemer, W. (2022). Imperium E.U. Labor Injustice, Crisis, New Resistances, Tredition Gmbh.