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| Adjournment Debate on the 200th Anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, House of Commons. |
| Tuesday, 20 March 2007 |
David Lammy MP and Minister for Culture today attended an important Adjournment Debate on the 200th Anniversary of the Parliamentary Abolition of the Slave Trade.
The debate was opened by Rt Hon John Prescott MP, Deputy Prime Minister:
Mr Speaker, the House today commemorates the 200th anniversary of its legislation to abolish the appalling and unacceptable slave trade. This is an historic moment for the UK, which led the world in legislating against the vile trade in the slavery of human beings.
I welcome the participation of the Rt Hon Member for Richmond and the Rt Hon Member for Gordon in this debate, and I thank them for their support for this year’s commemoration.
Today is also an opportunity for me to thank publicly the members of the Bicentenary Advisory Group, as well as my Ministerial colleagues: the Leader in the Other Place, Baroness Amos, and the Hon Members for Tottenham, Gedling, and Sheffield Heeley. I am very grateful for the hard work and imagination that they, and their staff, have brought to this important year of events.
I also want to express my appreciation for the work of many stakeholders and local authorities around the country who are participating in the commemorations – especially Liverpool, Bristol, London, and Hull, the home of William Wilberforce MP.
Events for this year are to be found in the commemorative booklet to be launched on Thursday. This will be made available to Members of both Houses. The events are to be found in more detail on the BBC website, along with a superb set of programme discussions of the highest quality. On behalf of the House, I want to congratulate the BBC for its efforts - and especially Chantal Badjie, Project Director of the BBC's season on the abolition of the slave trade.
The House will be aware of the launch of this year's commemoration by my Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister, followed by a wider series of events over this weekend. There will be a national memorial service at Westminster Abbey next Tuesday, and a Parliamentary exhibition will open in Westminster Hall from 23rd May to September.
There will be a young persons' debate here in Parliament in September, at which young people from Africa and the Caribbean will join youngsters from Britain. Two replica slave ships are making voyages to commemorate the North Atlantic slave trade this year. The "Zong" (the ship from the "Amazing Grace" film) will arrive in the UK next Thursday. The "Amistad" will sail from America on 21st June, arriving in the UK in time for 23rd August, the annual UNESCO day against slavery, as part of the commemoration by the museums and local authorities.
It will call at Bristol, London and Liverpool, and then sail to Africa and the Caribbean.
We are also encouraging a debate about how we can commemorate this anniversary as a national event in the future. Should we have a national day of commemoration every year, and - if so - when? The House may be aware that the European Commission supports 11th June as the European Day against Human Trafficking. This day could be a candidate for an annual commemorative event. But I leave this open for discussion.
I am sure the whole House will join with me in paying tribute to William Wilberforce's 20 year campaign to secure the first piece of legislation to make slavery illegal. Nevertheless, to put this into perspective, Parliament, prior to that legislation, had already passed over 100 laws accommodating the slave trade. Those laws allowed slaves to be treated by the courts as property, not as people. Many died and, yes, were murdered, in the most criminal circumstances - with no redress.
William Wilberforce was the Parliamentary leader of an abolitionist movement which embraced thousands of people, from all walks of life. It became a mass movement of popular discontent against a barbaric and inhuman trade. Parliament had to accept the will of the people and the cause of the abolitionists.
This bicentenary is an opportunity for all of us to remember the millions who were sold into slavery. To also remember those people who were horrified by the inhumanity and indignity of slavery, whose values of fairness and social justice led them to fight slavery. They included slaves and former slaves, church leaders, Quakers, politicians and countless ordinary citizens who signed petitions, marched, lobbied and campaigned for change.
Some are remembered on the stamps which the Royal Mail is issuing for this anniversary on Thursday. The stamps depict William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, a major campaigner at home and abroad, the philanthropist Granville Sharp, and the philanthropist and religious writer Hannah More. The stamps include leading former slaves who became inspirational campaigners Sancho and Equiano, who helped freed slaves resettle from Nova Scotia to Sierra Leone.
In 1792, the British Prime Minister William Pitt said that the slave trade was "the greatest stigma on our national character which ever yet existed."
More than 200 years later, my Rt Hon Friend the Prime Minister said: "The bicentenary offers us a chance, not just to say how profoundly shameful the slave trade was how we condemn its existence utterly and we praise those who fought for its abolition. But also to express our deep sorrow that it ever happened, that it ever could have happened."
Mr Speaker, I understand that as many as a 40% of the slaves who were shipped from Africa went through the ports of Ghana and Sierra Leone.
The House is aware that President Kufuor of Ghana had a successful State Visit last week. In July last year, President Kufuor visited Hull to open the Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation, the first academic institution dedicated to the study of past and modern day slavery. In August, it will hold a conference in Ghana with UNESCO on the abolition of the slave trade.
This weekend, I am looking forward to welcoming the Prime Minister of Barbados, Mr Owen Arthur, to Hull to give a Wilberforce Lecture. He will receive a book on the remarkable contribution of Caribbean workers to the success of the National Health Service, produced by the Department of Health and presented by my Rt Hon Friend the Member for Doncaster Central.
Mr Speaker, in Ghana last month, I saw first hand Elmina Castle which was used in this pernicious slave trade – a symbol of man’s inhumanity to man. I saw the dungeons – the cold, dank stench of evil remains there till this day - and the stone walls as "the point of no return".
Those dungeons have become shrines, with wreaths laid by Americans of African descent who come to witness the remains of this repugnant trade. In Freetown in Sierra Leone, I saw where the slaves liberated by the Royal Navy came ashore through the Freedom Steps - such a contrast to the point of no return at Elmina. Indeed, we should recognise the important role played by the Royal Navy in arresting ships and freeing slaves and returning them to Africa.
Mr Speaker, a memorable part of my trip was to visit the schools, where the children were enthusiastic and keen to learn, and so proud to wear their uniforms.
The Vine Memorial School in Sierra Leone is twinned with Kelvin Hall School in Hull. I also visited the Montessori School at Cape Coast, which is twinned with 3 schools in Derbyshire. The children expressed their feelings in the most dramatic re-enactment of the slave chain. They said – and I quote - “Not every black man was innocent. Not every white man was guilty.” An accurate and powerful statement on that evil trade from the mouths of schoolchildren.
Everyone – and I mean everyone – should feel the sorrow, pain and regret – yes, regret. As the Ghanaian Minister for Tourism said to me in a UNESCO conference we attended: we don’t need apologies. We need forgiveness - from all and for all - for man’s inhumanity to men, women and children.
The Minister pointed out that a community of African diaspora was distributed around the world, and he called on their descendants to come and help Ghana and other African nations in what he described as an act of pilgrimage. To come visit and help in their development and the education of their children.
Indeed, it is one of the world’s greatest scandals that, even today, 100 million children across the world don't go to primary school – denied one of the most basic rights of all, the right to education. Up to two thirds of Africa’s children never complete a full primary education. What a waste of talent and potential. History has given us an obligation to help them realise their full potential, recognising that education is central to tackling inequality.
The Government is working with countries around the world to do this. As announced by my Rt Hon Friend, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Britain is planning to spend £8.5 billion over the next 10 years, supporting long-term education plans in poor countries - that's 4 times as much as in the previous 10 years. And we call on other rich countries to follow, so that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete at least five years of quality education.
Today, we look forward to realising the huge potential of a new Africa in which every person can one day be freed from injustice, poverty, disease and modern slavery. Poverty and social exclusion are at the root of most forms of slavery and forced labour today.
But Africa is the only continent getting poorer and where, in many places, life expectancy is falling. And Africa will currently fail to meet its Millennium Development Goals.
But the world is now focusing on how we can help Africa tackle its problems. I am proud that the UK led the way with African countries in setting up the Commission for Africa to address these issues.
Through the UK's partnership in aid and investment with African nations, and our support of the global work of UNESCO and other international organisations, our Government is working to help Africa help herself.
The House should also recognise the role of local government in assisting countries of slave origin. My own city of Hull is twinned with Freetown and is giving assistance. They are now discussing whether it is possible to help Freetown rebuild their town hall, which was burnt down, and rename it Wilberforce House.
In Sierra Leone, I met two members of this House - my Hon Friends, the Members for Crosby and Hastings and Rye and their constituents have been helping the communities of Waterloo and Hastings, which are twinned with their namesake towns. They are helping to provide a library and community facilities. Much more could be done by local authorities and towns in the UK to assist communities in these countries and I would like to see this happen as part of the legacy of this year's events.
Mr Speaker, when I first began to explore how we could commemorate this 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade, I immediately recognised the importance of ensuring that our young people have the chance to get involved, and have their say. I went to the St Paul's area of Bristol, and Liverpool, and I asked young black people how they wanted to mark this anniversary.
They stressed to me the importance of looking forward as well as looking into the past. They felt that their school history lessons did not teach a proper black history or give greater attention to black achievements. Yes, they said, we should reflect on the past, but also look to the future.
This year we are considering important changes to our school curriculum. It will incorporate the study of the slave trade as a compulsory element of our History curriculum, with all slavery’s brutality and inhumanity – and not just an element of our colonial past.
So, Mr Speaker, this bicentenary commemoration is about looking forward as well as looking back into the past. Slavery did not end when we passed that Act of Parliament in 1807. It continued in the colonies and elsewhere.
The abolition of slavery across the world remains unfinished business today.
In 1998, the United Nations set up its Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery and the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights reported: “Slavery continues to be reported in a wide range of forms: traditional chattel slavery, bonded labour, serfdom, child labour, migrant labour, domestic labour, forced labour and slavery for ritual or religious purposes”. All in the 21st Century.
The nations of the world must unite and campaign to end the unspeakable cruelty that persists in the form of modern day slavery. I urge this House to support the Government’s commitment to work with all countries to end the scandal of slavery in all its modern forms.
A few months ago, in New York, I discussed modern slavery and human trafficking with Kofi Annan as Secretary-General of the United Nations, where all nations must honour Article 4 of the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which requires that "slavery should be prohibited in all its forms".
As Kofi Annan said in a lecture in January, "In the 21st Century, Africa differs in very fundamental ways from the Africa of old.”
I can announce to the House today that Kofi Annan has agreed to address Parliament in the Royal Gallery on 8 May, which will be an important event in this commemorative year.
In New York, I also held talks with UN Ambassadors from nations affected by trafficking, as well as the UN agency against drugs and crime. And last month, I held a discussion in Geneva with the International Labour Organisation and agencies concerned with human trafficking.
The ILO estimates that a minimum of 12.3 million people are enslaved in world today. Of those trafficked into forced labour, 43% are in sexual exploitation 32% are in labour exploitation 25% are in a mixture of both. The estimated value of this criminal activity is $32 billion. The ILO says that 218 million children were trapped in child labour in 2004, of whom 126 million were in hazardous work. (UNICEF estimates that figure reached 171m by 2006). Those figures are on such a scale that it is hard to imagine the misery concealed within them.
It is true that all countries find it difficult to make an accurate assessment of the scale of human trafficking. This is a complex global problem which requires the co-operation of many agencies across the European Union and beyond.
In the UK, emerging findings suggest that, at any one moment in time in 2003, there were in the region of 4,000 victims of trafficking for prostitution. The same study estimates the total costs of trafficking for prostitution to have been around £1 billion in 2003, but we cannot count the appalling misery and despair of its victims in purely financial terms.
Intelligence indicates that the average selling price for an adult women is £2,000 to £3,000. There was an appalling incident in which a Lithuanian girl was lured to the UK to sell ice cream and was taken from brothel to brothel by a gang. She was sold 7 times in 3 months. All this in the United Kingdom of today. I am sure the whole House is appalled and disgusted by this.
That is why we signed and ratified the Palermo Protocol to combat trafficking, particularly of women and children. We established the UK Human Trafficking Centre, which was set up last year and is a central point for the development of expertise and co-operation by the police and immigration officers.
The Government has funded the POPPY project since March 2003 to provide safe shelter and support to assist in the recovery of adult female victims who have been trafficked into the UK for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
The Government will sign and ratify the Council of Europe Convention against Trafficking in Human Beings. It will be signed on Friday by my Rt Hon Friend the Home Secretary when he will publish our Action Plan to tackle human trafficking.
We are improving our intelligence and understanding of the scope and scale of child trafficking, and a full report into the extent of human trafficking will be published.
So, Mr Speaker, in this bicentenary year, we commemorate the past but with a strong commitment to overcoming the challenges of today. We recognise the tremendous contribution of the African and Caribbean diaspora to the success of this country and the diversity of our culture and heritage.
We renew our commitment to help overcome poverty help educate the children of Africa and combat the evil of slavery and human trafficking wherever it takes place.
In this House in 1789, William Wilberforce said, in his first major speech on slavery, words which could equally apply to modern day slavery and human trafficking: "Sir, the nature and all the circumstances of this trade are now laid open to us: - we can no longer plead ignorance, we cannot evade it; it is now an object placed before us, we cannot pass it. we may spurn it, we may kick it out of our way, but we cannot turn aside so as to avoid seeing it. For it is brought now so directly before our eyes that this House must decide, and must justify to all the world, (and to their own consciences) the rectitude of the grounds and principles of their decision."
Mr Speaker, those words of Wilberforce in this Parliament in the 19th Century are equally applicable to human trafficking in the 21st Century. The House must give the same commitment as Wilberforce did. Signing and ratifying the Council of Europe Convention is a good and appropriate step in that direction.
Let this anniversary lead to a wider discussion and greater recognition of slavery, in its old and new contexts, and to redress the evil imbalance which it continues to create.
Mr Speaker, reminded by our past, we reinforce our commitment to a future in which there can be social justice and freedom for all.
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