Slavery or What Happens to a Dream Deferred
Written by admin on May 21st, 2011Slavery
An established fact of history, humans have been keeping slaves in some form or the other over the ages. And slaves have been trying to break free from bondage ever since. The Book of Exodus in the Bible narrating the flight of the Israelites from ancient Egypt under the leadership of Moses is regarded as probably the first exhaustive story of the efforts of the slaves to free themselves. However, that was an account of the success of a particular group of slaves to become free, and was different from what is called abolition of all kinds of slavery. The Persians were the first society to ban slavery, and their monarch Cyrus the Great (died 530 BCE) enshrined this in a passage in his charter of citizen’s rights which can be seen in the British Museum:
“… And until I am the monarch, I will never let anyone take possession of movable and landed properties of the others by force or without compensation. Until I am alive, I prevent unpaid, forced labor. To day, I announce that everyone is free to choose a religion. People are free to live in all regions and take up a job provided that they never violate other’s rights. No one could be penalized for his or her relatives’ faults. I prevent slavery and my governors and subordinates are obliged to prohibit exchanging men and women as slaves within their own ruling domains. Such traditions should be exterminated the world over. …”
Removal of a slave from England against his will was the subject matter of a lawsuit concerning James Somersett in Britain in 1772, and was ruled as an illegal act. Similarly, in the matter of Joseph Knight, slavery was declared against the Laws of Scotland in 1777. The Act for the Abolition of Slave Trade was passed by the British Parliament in 1807, and became a law the next year due to the efforts of protesters against slavery. In order to make the entire Atlantic slave trade illegal all over the British empire, it imposed a fine of 100 pounds for every slave if and when found in a British ship. The subsequent Slavery Abolition Act outlawed slavery itself in all the British colonies, and all slaves were eventually freed in 1838. In France slavery was prevalent, but not authorized. It was, however, important for its colonies in the Caribbean; more so in Saint-Domingue, where the slaves rose in revolt in August 1791. Unable to control the uprising (known as the Haitian Revolution), slavery was abolished in all French colonies by the Revolutionary Commissioners in Paris in 1794. Napoleon, on becoming emperor, tried to revive it by sending troops to Guadeloupe. They succeeded there, but were defeated by the former slaves of Saint-Domingue who declared independence. That was how the first black republic of Haiti came to exist on 1st January, 1804. A French Law passed in 2001 proclaimed slavery as a crime against humanity.
“Underground Railroad” was the route taken by many escaped slaves from the United States to Canada. In 1865, slavery was abolished in the United States by the thirteenth amendment of that country’s constitution. Prominent American abolitionists who wanted slaves to be sent back to Africa, joined hands with American Colonization Society, and selected a site negotiating with the local tribal chiefs on the west coast of the continent. There the first settlements of freed American slaves were established in 1822, which was named Liberia in 1824 and became the oldest independent republic in Africa in 1847. The blacks in America, however, preferred to stay back even though there was opposition from white wage earners and later on from trade unions. Liberia’s next door neighbour, Sierra Leone was the country set up by the British for the same purpose for their former slaves in Africa.
In 1926, under the auspices of the League of Nations, a Slavery Convention was arranged, considered to be the first significant move towards the banning of slavery world over. Slavery was banned explicitly under Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted in 1948 by the United Nations General Assembly. This was followed by the United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including child slavery. Again, in December 1966, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights derived from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights banned slavery in its Article 8. Having been ratified by 35 nations, this international treaty came into force in March 1976. By November 2003, it had been ratified by 104 nations.
Paradoxically, according to Kevin Bales of the advocacy group “Free the Slaves”, there are more people under slavery today than has ever been in the past. However, percentage-wise they are the smallest ever of the total human population. The group states further that a young, adult, male slave in Mali costs 40 US dollars while a HIV-free young female in Thailand (for prostitution) sells for a thousand. Usually, this is the price paid to the procurer or the parents. Paradoxically, again, this price-range is the lowest ever that has been paid for slaves historically in basic labour terms. For instance, a male slave in America of the 1850s would have cost 1000 dollars in those days (which equals 38,000 dollars now). So, slaves are now 1/38th in cost than what they were over 150 years ago in America. This has made slavery a very profitable business averaging 8 times returns of money invested.
In the opinon of the advocacy group, slavery is still very active but carried out in secret. People, mostly women and children abducted from poor countries in Africa, Asia and South America, are shipped to a foreign country (usually the Middle East or Asia) to be sold into slavery. The men and male children work as labourers while the women and girls become unwilling domestic slaves and prostitutes.
From Wikipedia and other sources
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