Breaking the Chains - Eliminating Slavery, ending Poverty
23 March 2007
International Development Secretary Hilary Benn
recently launched a new
publication – Breaking the
chains: Eliminating slavery, ending poverty
(1 mb) - which illustrates the shocking issue of contemporary slavery, how it
relates to poverty, and what DFID and the UK Government are doing to address the
problem.
It is two hundred years since the
Abolition of the Slave Trade Act which made
the slave trade illegal in the British Empire. But today people are still
suffering from forms of slavery and human trafficking. In 2005 the International
Labour Organisation (ILO) estimated that at least 12.3 million women, men and
children were bound by slavery around the world. Of this number 2.4 million will
have been trafficked – many women or girls for the sex trade.
Hard labour in Vietnam
At the age of 13, Thuy left home thinking she was going to a good job that would enable her to send back money to her impoverished family. Instead she found herself forced to work long hours without pay in a brick factory. Desperately poor, with little education and lacking any social protection, she fell victim to the false promises of a trafficker. But rescued from her bondage, and with the help of education and skills training provided by the Vietnam Women’s Union, Thuy was able to break the cycle of exploitation.
Slavery is almost always a sign of a deeper underlying problem – poverty. Poverty makes people an easy target for exploitation and traps families in slave-like conditions – often from one generation to the next.
Hilary Benn, speaking at the opening of the 'Slave Britain' photo exhibition at St Paul’s Cathedral on 20 February, said:
“As long as one in five people live in extreme poverty, as long as 77 million children are not enrolled in primary school, and as long as too many countries have ineffective government – there will be a ready supply of victims for the greedy and unscrupulous.
“Human trafficking and contemporary slavery are part of the greatest moral challenge today – to end global poverty. And that is what this Government is pledged to do.”
Read the full speaking notes(7
kb) from the Secretary of State's speech
Tony Blair, in anarticle for the New Nation newspaper last November, said
that the commemoration for the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery is
a chance to express "deep sorrow" that the trade ever happened.
The Prime Minister stated:
“We also need, while reflecting on the past, to acknowledge the unspeakable cruelty that persists in the form of modern day slavery. Today slavery comes in many guises around the world - such as bonded labour, forced recruitment of child soldiers and human trafficking - and at its root is poverty and social exclusion.”
Last month the Prime Minister announced that the UK will be signing theCouncil of Europe Convention on Human Trafficking. In the next few months the
Government will publish the UK Action Plan on Human Trafficking.
There are many events taking place across the country to mark the bicentenary of
theAbolition
of the Slave Trade Act.
Links:
- Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
- Labour Standards and Poverty Reduction
