UNITED NATIONS, 22 August 2004 — As the year 2004 is observed by the United Nations as the International Year Against Slavery, millions of men, women and children around the world face conditions that can be likened to slavery. These include bonded labor, child labor, and trafficking of people.
Although such exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same, say United Nations officials in New York. Slavery is prohibited by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and is banned in most countries.
The United Nations General Assembly officially named the year 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, to mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of Haiti as the first republic by freed African slaves. Prior to Haiti’s establishment, for four centuries from 1400 to 1800, millions of African men, women and children were captured and sold into slavery in the Americas, Caribbean and Europe.
Of particular importance to the observation of the International Year, is tomorrow’s commemoration marking the tragedy of trans-Atlantic slave trade. Tomorrow about 100 schools in 22 countries, participating in the education project of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) will examine the causes and consequences of slave trade. Teacher training and youth forums will seek to “break the silence” shrouding slave trade.
As the United Nations General Assembly session opens in September, activities in observation of the International Year continue to focus on exhibitions, scientific meetings, training seminars, conferences, research studies, lectures, concerts and awards ceremonies. With guidelines provided by UNESCO, each country is responsible for organizing its own activities.
A highlight of the International Year is a major multi-media traveling exhibition, which will be at the United Nations, during the UN General Assembly session from September to December 2004. The exhibition has been organized by New York City’s Schomburg Center for Black Culture and Research, New York Public Library and UNESCO Slave Route Project. The exhibition is entitled “Lest We Forget: the Triumph Over Slavery “ and the aim is to create new perspectives about slavery.
“Our emphasis for the exhibition is to focus on slavery’s pain and struggle,” said Christopher Moore, a Schomburg Center director, in an interview.
“The exhibition and related book projects emphasize the tremendous contribution of the enslaved Africans, who in effect were the colony builders of North America, South America and the Caribbean.”
“Of the first 6.5 million immigrants to the so-called New World, 5.5million were black, Moore stated. “This represents about 80 percent of the population by the time of the revolutionary war in the United States.”
Director-General of UNESCO, Koichiro Matsura, officially inaugurated the year by stressing the world must fulfill its “duty” to remember the unprecedented tragedy of slavery, and to “sound the alarm about all forms of contemporary racism, discrimination and intolerance.”
The official inaugural ceremony of the International Year was held in Ghana which was a center of slave trade up to the year 1800, and is UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s home country. However, in Ghana today “Trokosi” slavery continues, according to the US State Department report on human rights practices. Under the “Trokosi” system, virgin girls are given to priests as property, for appeasement for crimes committed by relatives.
In spite of the observation of the International Year, abuse persists. Today in Haiti, children as young as four are trafficked internally as “restavek” domestic workers, and an estimated 10 percent of children are forced to work without pay, and risk sexual and physical abuse, according to Anti-Slavery International, the non-governmental organization that documents such abuse.
“The UN decision to name 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, draws attention that slavery continues to be a brutal reality for millions of people around the world,” said Anti-Slavery International spokeswoman, Beth Herzfeld, in an interview.
“It is also crucial to create greater awareness of this abuse, and to address the root causes such as poverty and societal marginalization,” she elaborated. She said during the International Year, governments need to give priority to key issues, presented to the UN by Anti-Slavery International.
The final declaration of the World Conference Against Racism, held in South Africa in 2001, recognized slave trade as a crime against humanity.
— Farida Burtis is a free-lance journalist based in New York.
