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A freed slave ("Whipped Peter") shows the scars on his back from an overseer's beating. Louisiana, United States, 1863. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons.) |
25 March 2013 -- The transatlantic slave trade is one of human history's most shameful chapters. In four hundred years, as many as 30 million Africans were enslaved and transported to the Caribbean and the Americas (the infamous "Middle Passage") under brutal conditions. It was the largest long-distance forced migration of innocent people in history.This Day, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 2007, commemorates the victims of this great crime. It is meant to complement the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition observed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).
The Day draws attention to the fact that slavery still exists. Millions of people worldwide remain in bondage through practices such as sexual trafficking and child labour. The memory of the transatlantic slave trade is both a lesson in the dangers of racism and prejudice and a reminder of the urgency of eradicating slavery in the modern world.
Source: United Nations
Selected learning materials
Anti-Slavery Fact Sheets
This is a series of useful lesson resources on various topics related to modern-day slavery. The two-pagers on "Bonded Labour" and "Slavery from the past..." can be used by teachers as illustrative materials in civic education, history or other social science classrooms.
Breaking the Silence: Learning About the Transatlantic Slave Trade
This site aims to help teachers and educators to break the silence that continues to surround the story of the enslavement of Africans.
Child Slavery
This module developed by the Child Labor Research Initiative of the University of Iowa Center for Human Rights (Iowa, USA) contains four lesson plans. Each lesson is highly flexible and adaptable. The module may be used for students from 5th grade all the way up to high school level.
You're not for sale: Trafficking in Human Beings
This comic book presents four cases in which men, women and children are victims of human trafficking and trapped in different forms of exploitative modern slavery. These stories were published by the Council of Europe to alert the citizens of member states on the forms of human trafficking and victim protection.
International and regional standards on slavery, the slave trade and modern day slavery:
Slavery Convention (1926)
Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others (1949)
Protocol amending the Slavery Convention (1953)
Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery (1956)
Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (2000)
Useful links
Anti-Slavery International
International Day information page (UN)
Slave Trade Archives Project (UNESCO)
UN Slavery Memorial (planned)
UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery
Virtual Visit to Gorée's "House of Slaves"
Links to organisations and resources on the issue of slavery
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