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In 1807 a mass movement of people from all walks of life made a real difference in bringing an end to the slave trade. As we mark 200 years since the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act we should remember their efforts, from people resisting their own enslavement, to ordinary men and women standing in solidarity with them in Britain, and individual activists and leaders who dedicated their life to the cause.

The commemorations this year also provide an opportunity to highlight the horrors of the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its legacies, which continue to have an impact today. My focus in this essay, however, is on the contemporary forms of slavery that continue to blight the lives of millions of people worldwide. We can learn much from the movement against the slave trade, as we seek to combat these continuing forms of slavery today.

Slavery and international law
Campaigners had to fight for the Transatlantic Slave Trade to be banned, as it operated with the full backing of the law, whereas contemporary forms of slavery are already defined and prohibited in international law. The Slavery Convention of 1926 proscribes slavery, the slave trade and forced labour, defining slavery as “the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised”. The 1956 United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, includes debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage practices, and the sale or giving of children into exploitation, in its definition of slavery. The combined legal definition set out in these two treaties remains in use today .

Working with these legal definitions as a guideline, the circumstances of an enslaved person today include control of an individual; restriction of their freedom of movement; and their lack of consent. These elements of control and coercion, often accompanied by the threat of violence, are central to the existence of slavery. The migrant worker whose passport has been confiscated by his or her employer, the child sold as a camel jockey or the woman forced into prostitution – all have the element of choice and control of their lives taken away from them and find themselves in conditions of slavery.

Slavery in context
Despite being illegal, contemporary slavery continues to affect millions of people, within the context of poverty, discrimination, and power inequalities. Poverty and slavery are related to each other in different ways. Poor groups are vulnerable to exploitation and slavery, while those in slavery-like practices often face insurmountable hurdles to extract themselves from poverty, even if they are able to escape their enslavement. Efforts to combat poverty must therefore pay careful attention to slavery practices, which otherwise may go unchallenged. And truly eliminating slavery involves providing people with the means to create sustainable livelihoods.

Slavery is also closely linked to discrimination against certain groups of people. Elaborate ideologies of racism were used to justify and perpetuate the Transatlantic Slave Trade, portraying Africans as sub-human. The impact of this can still be seen today, in the discrimination and marginalisation of people of African descent. Contemporary forms of slavery are also often justified and bolstered by discrimination and prejudice – against those of a certain ethnicity or religion, low or non caste status groups, indigenous peoples – and gender discrimination plays a key role in the enslavement of women and girls. Believing someone is less human than oneself makes it easier to abuse them.

The shape of the global economy is influenced in the history of enslavement and colonialism. The wealth amassed from Africa and other colonies played its part in kick-starting the industrial development of European powers such as Britain, while having a negative impact on the development of the countries affected. Today’s patterns of wealth and power worldwide play their part in creating and sustaining the conditions of poverty and inequality that make people vulnerable to contemporary forms of slavery .

One example of the impact of the global economy on slavery is the explosion in global migration, with increasing numbers of people forced to move away from home in search of a means of survival. Richer countries have tended to react negatively to this phenomenon, making legal migration harder even when ageing populations and falling birth rates are fuelling ever greater demands for labour in these countries. This means migrants have to depend on agents in order to gain access to work abroad, agents who may well turn out to be traffickers with no interest other than in exploiting the migrant worker so as to make a profit.

Contemporary forms of slavery
Anti-Slavery International was founded in 1839 by the same abolitionists who led the campaign in 1807 and fought for the abolition of slavery in 1833. We work for an end to contemporary forms of slavery throughout the world – at least 12.3 million men, women and children are in slavery in the twenty first century .

Bonded labour
Bonded labour, or debt bondage, is probably the least known form of slavery today, and yet it is the most widely used method of enslaving people. A person becomes a bonded labourer when his or her labour is demanded as a means of repayment for a loan. The person is then tricked or trapped into working for very little or no pay, often for seven days a week. The value of their work is invariably greater than the original sum of money borrowed.

Amrik’s story
Amrik worked as a bonded agricultural labourer for a landlord called Ram Singh for 12 years in the Sangrur District of the Punjab. In that time Amrik never received a salary, only the occasional small loan. If he ever left his landlord to visit his family in his village, Ram Singh charged him Rs100 (US $1.65) for each day and night he was away. As a bonded labourer, Amrik was expected to be on duty 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. After 12 years, Ram Singh demanded Rs 25,000 (US $412.50) based on the interest on the very small loans Amrik had received.

With the support of a local organisation, Amrik eventually escaped from Ram Singh and went to work in a local brick kiln where he earned a daily wage. The landlord found him there and threatened him with violence, so Amrik fled to a local anti-slavery group, Volunteers for Social Justice, in nearby Phillaur.

Furious that his slave had escaped, Ram Singh sent five men to kidnap Amrik’s son, Kamikar, who was also working at the brick kiln. The men brought Kamikar back to the landlord’s house where they beat him. He was forced to work for the landlord in place of his father until a warrant officer came to serve a writ on the landlord for Kamikar’s kidnapping and enslavement.

Unconditional worst forms of child labour
An estimated 8.4 million children are in the ‘unconditional worst forms of child labour’ worldwide . These are slavery practices such as trafficking, debt bondage and other forms of forced labour, which are considered unacceptable and must be eradicated immediately.

One example of the child slavery involves the trafficking of children into domestic work in countries including the Philippines. Here girls are brought from the outlying islands to the capital Manila and other cities, and forced to work in people’s homes. This makes the children particularly vulnerable as they are not visible, and domestic work is often not regulated under labour laws.

Mirabel’s story
Mirabel is from the Visayas in central Philippines. Her family earn a living through growing bananas, corn and coconuts. At the age of thirteen, Mirabel decided to leave school and start working to help provide for the family.

Mirabel worked for several employers as a domestic helper in neighbouring provinces, and after a couple of years a neighbour offered her the chance to be a domestic worker in Manila. She was assured a monthly salary of 1800 pesos (US$ 37.80) and given a wonderful picture of what life in Manila would be like. Despite her father not liking the idea, Mirabel was very keen to go and her neighbour took her to the regional capital, the sea port of Dumaguete City. Here the neighbour was paid 500 pesos (US $10.50) and left Mirabel in the hands of traffickers, who took her to Manila by boat with 22 other recruits.

Mirabel started to work as a housemaid in Makati City, a district of Manila. Working from 5.00am to 11.00pm, she had to do the laundry, iron and look after the employer’s dog. She had to climb the roof of the house to sweep it and to cut trees. Mirabel was forced to sleep on the floor without a blanket, and was only allowed to eat food which had gone off. Her employer hit Mirabel, and she was never paid her promised salary. One day she tried to escape but a local official returned her to her employer.

After several months, Mirabel was able to call a telephone hotline set up by a local organisation, Visayan Forum. The local authorities managed to rescue Mirabel and Visayan Forum provided her with shelter and helped her to file a case against her employer. While at the shelter, Mirabel was able to receive counselling to help her deal with her experience.

Descent based slavery
In some parts of the world people are born into slavery as a result of their ethnicity, caste, or social status, for example in areas of West Africa, including Niger. Research estimates that tens of thousands of people in Niger live in slavery, forced to work for no pay for their ‘masters’, primarily herding cattle, working on farmland or as domestic servants.

People who are viewed as coming from the slave class also face ongoing discrimination. Masters consider that they own their slaves, so even when former slaves have been free for many years, the master will assume the right to approve their marriage or inherit their property.

Boulboulou’s story
Boulboulou was taken from her parents, who were also in slavery, at the age of four in 1984, and sold on for a few kilos of semolina, tea and sugar. Boulboulou was forced to work for a ‘master’ who owned a large herd of camels. She spent her life guarding, driving, and looking after these camels. At 16, she was forced to marry. But she remained living in her ‘master’s’ tent, as a slave. Boulboulou gave birth to a daughter, but despite this she was not relieved of any of her daily duties, such as pounding millet, carrying water over long distances, gathering firewood, and caring for the camels. If any of the camels escaped, Boulboulou would be abused, humiliated and beaten.

Just as when she was a baby, Boulboulou’s young daughter, at the age of three, was taken and given as a wedding gift to the master’s daughter. In this distressing and helpless situation, Boulboulou decided to escape to look for her family. Some local people helped her to find her parents and directed her to a local anti-slavery organisation, Timidria, who became involved. They successfully reunited Boulboulou with her daughter, who is now enrolled in school in the Tahoua region. Boulboulou is now married to a man of her choice and with whom she has three children. Today, she leads the life of a free and happy woman.

Forced labour
Forced labour is any work or service which people are made to do against their will, under the threat of some form of punishment. Some governments are still directly responsible for exacting forced labour. The Burmese Government is notorious for perpetrating this kind of abuse. Hundreds of thousands of people in Burma have been forced to work as agriculture workers, army porters and construction workers for little or no pay.

In Sudan, forced labour has taken place in the context of civil war. An estimated 14,000 people were abducted and enslaved by government-backed militia in Sudan during the civil war between 1983 and 2002. Many thousands remain in slavery and are yet to be identified and reunited with their families.

Human trafficking
Human trafficking involves the movement of people away from their homes, through violence, deception or coercion in order to exploit them through forced labour, servitude or slavery-like practices. Trafficked people are forced to work against their will and traffickers control their freedom of movement, where and when they will work and what pay, if any, they will receive.

The scale of trafficking is very difficult to gauge because of its illicit nature. But at a minimum, hundreds of thousands of people are trafficked, for both sexual and labour exploitation, each year. For example, West African children are recruited into domestic labour or selling goods at market; women are trafficked from countries such as Albania and Moldova and forced into prostitution in France, Italy or the UK; men are trafficked from Mexico and forced to work on farms in the USA. Recent research by Anti-Slavery International has documented migrant workers trafficked into forced labour in the UK in industries such as agriculture, construction, food processing and packaging, nursing, hospitality, and the restaurant trade .

Taking action against slavery
The abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade was brought about by a mass movement made up of many sections of society. People power was a crucial element of the campaign. Today we can take similar actions in fighting against slavery. Signing petitions, meeting together to discuss the issues, lobbying Members of Parliament and building a movement for change – these methods are as important today as they were two hundred years ago.

Anti-Slavery International’s campaign, the Fight for Freedom 1807-2007, is running throughout 2007, aiming to increase awareness of slavery past and present and to have a practical impact on slavery issues today. At the heart of this campaign is the Declaration, which seeks to echo the petitions against the slave trade, and asks people to pledge their support for measures to understand the Transatlantic Slave Trade, redress its legacies, and eradicate modern slavery. You can sign online or by filling out a Declaration postcard. For those who want to be more involved, there are regular letter writing and email actions by joining the Fight for Freedom Campaigns Network.

In 2007, we have the opportunity to revitalise the spirit that created the momentum to end the slave trade in 1807, and harness it for another truly historic goal: an end to slavery once and for all. To sign the Declaration, join the campaign or find out more, visit www.antislavery.org/2007.