Allegations Lost and Found: the afterlife of Dominican sugar slavery

In 2007 visual media reports revived allegations that sugar was being produced in the Dominican Republic using the labour of Haitian slaves. Beyond raising the general public's awareness of the plight of migrant sugarcane workers, the films and their surrounding publicity have led to the Dominican sugar slavery allegation being adopted in yearly global overview reports produced by agencies of the US Departments of Labor and State. The Dominican Republic has as a result been put back on an aid-and-trade-sanctionable track, more than 15 years after sugar slavery last featured as an allegation in any leading monitor group's reports. All this, plus evidence that one videographer knew central aspects of the allegation to be false at the moment of its public release, mark the revival of the Dominican sugar slavery allegation as a precursor to the media furor triggered by the Kony 2012 ‘viral video’. Analysis of the visual media afterlife of Dominican sugar slavery suggests that the ‘Kony effect’ may be less new than meets the eye, for Kony 2012 is not the first video campaign to promote yesterday's human rights crisis as today's imperative for action.