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This thread title reminded me of that short story where the couple has a son and gets a robot to be the son's friend, and the robot is such a perfect child that when their house burns down, the husband saves the robot instead of the son.
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Maybe it was the wife who saved the robot instead of the son. All I remember is that one spouse killed the other, and the story is him/her explaining what happened to the police.
No. Apparently most of the Arab nations which still engage in camel racing used children bought at auction, kidnapped from nearby African countries, or essentially sold into indentured servitude. Qatar has passed a law banning human slavery of any kind -- finally -- and is finally getting around to passing child labor laws. Unfortunately, in the case of many of these kids (especially the kidnapped ones), camel racing is all they know how to do, and they face being either turned onto the street with no useful skills or, in the cases of the youngest, actually forcibly returned to their home countries. Those who were sold by their own families are often those families' only means of support, and are distraught at the thought of not being able to "contribute."
It's an odd issue, really, because this is clearly the right thing to do -- but it opens up a whole 'nother can of worms involving the displaced jockeys themselves.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Did it say anything about what normally happened to the camel jockeys after they got too big/old to be competative? I mean, it said some were as young as four, I would imagine they wouldn't be able to race for many years before being considered too large.
Posts: 7954 | Registered: Mar 2004
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