Oppression is ghastly and our news papers and TV screens report plenty of it.
In our story, the Egyptians 'set taskmasters over time to oppress them with forced labor. They built supply cities, Pithom and Rameses, for Pharoah. It's right there in the beginning of the biblical account. The king of Egypt told the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah to kill the boys as they are born but allow the girls to live. It then goes on to recount how the midwives feared God and didn't do what the king of Egypt told them to do but rather let the boys live.