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| Culture Minister David Lammy's Keynote Speech to ‘Slavery: Unfinished Business’ Conference. |
| Saturday, 19 May 2007 |
The Wilberforce Institute for the Study of Slavery and Emancipation
David Lammy was delighted to speak at the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) international conference to mark the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade.
200 years in from the abolition of the British slave trade, slavery continues to blight millions of lives. The emancipation movement still has unfinished business.
Please click here to watch a video of the speech.
Please check against delivery.
INTRODUCTION
Let me begin by congratulating the Wilberforce Institute for organising this timely and long overdue conference but and also for a programme that makes this event perhaps the number one conference of this kind this year. As far as I know, there was no commemoration of the abolition of the slave trade one hundred years ago, no debate about its legacy, no discussion of its ramifications, but as this event, its programme and its audience over the last 3 days illustrate, times have changed. And so, I think, have we as a nation.
THE ABOLITION MOVEMENT AND WILBERFORCE
As we know, Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act in March 1807, an act that ended the legal trade in human cargo throughout the British Empire, and eventually led to the abolition of transatlantic slavery itself.
The consequences of this landmark act would change the nature and fabric of Britain forever. It created a climate in which people from across the social, economic and cultural spectrum of the country could join forces and speak out against the evil trade in human cargo. The popularity of the abolitionist movement meant that otherwise silent voices could now be heard and for this unprecedented campaign giving ordinary men, women and children the confidence to protest, and the desire to stand up for what they believe in, of course we give thanks.
And by demonstrating the force with which the power of public opinion and political will can change the course of history, abolitionism laid the foundation for many other populist human rights campaigns – from the Anti-Corn Law League and Chartism, to the advent of trade unionism and the birth of the British Labour Party and the Suffragettes, from the civil rights movement that swept the United States and Britain in the 1960s and 70s, to the anti-racist campaign and mass protests against apartheid, right up to latter day global campaigns such as Make Poverty History. All of them have their origins in that coming together. Indeed my politics, my reason for being here in this room, stems from one of those movements - the anti-colonial and independent movement that swept across the commonweatlth from India, to the Caribbean to Africa bringing with it my parents as immigrants to this country.
While legislation was being passed in Britain, abolitionist and resistance movements had also begun gaining ground throughout the Caribbean – particularly by those enslaved in Haiti and Jamaica. And in the United States, slavery would eventually become the ideological battleground on which the nation’s Civil War was fought.
But in Britain, at the forefront, clearly, of the abolition movement was William Wilberforce, a man of great tenacity and conviction, who for twenty years fought a campaign to end a social, political and economic philosophy that had viewed Africans with such utter contempt.
Wilberforce was a campaigner of great passion, energy and conviction. He was a highly intelligent man and a gifted orator, who often faced public ridicule and derision for daring to champion what was initially an extremely unpopular cause.
Today, things are different.
Recently, not a stone’s throw away from here in City Hall, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Very Revd. Rowan Williams described William Wilberforce as, “the most influential politician of the last millennium...”
Today, the name Wilberforce is synonymous with liberty and emancipation. In Freetown in Sierra Leone, as in Hull, I have walked down streets dedicated to him, and in this year of commemoration, reflection and debate, it’s only right that much is made of his contribution to ending the transatlantic slave trade. His name, in a sense, is now legion.
But as we pay homage to Wilberforce, let us also remember the other men and women who fought to end one of the darkest chapters in human history.
BALANCING THE HISTORY BOOKS
Let us remember Toussaint L’Ouverture who led the Saint Domingue revolution of 1791, eventually successfully defeating the British, Spanish and French armies and unifying with Santo Domingo to form Haiti, the first nation on earth to outlaw slavery.
Let us remember Olaudah Equiano – born in 1745 and snatched from his family in Benin as a child, sold into slavery and taken to the West Indies then America. Equiano was dragged from ship to ship, master to master, continent to continent, until in 1767 he “bought” his freedom. In London, Olaudah became one of the most outspoken abolitionists of his time, and his bestselling autobiography – The Interesting Narrative – published in 1789, served as an exposé on the evils of slavery.
I am also reminded of Ottabah Cugoano, born in Ghana in 1757, enslaved around 1770 and taken to the hellish plantations of the Caribbean. He was eventually brought to England to work as a servant, but by the late 1780s he had become a free man, working for “fashionable court painter” Richard Cosway.
Cugoano was an active member of the small salon of African abolitionists in London, that included Olaudah Equiano. In 1787, he wrote the Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species – a scathing attack on slavery that was used by other abolitionists as propaganda to support their demands for an end to the trade.
And there are many, many others, to which my short time on stage cannot do justice: Nanny of the Maroons, William Cufay, Harriet Tubman, Robert Wedderburn and Ignatius Sancho, Sojourner Truth and Frederick Douglass... and countless, countless, nameless individuals, all of whom had an unquestionable instinct for freedom – a reason to live for it and a just cause to fight and die for it – including freed slaves who joined the Royal Navy to enforce the slave trade act on the high seas.
Can the courage of an enslaved preacher such as Quamina, who was taken to my parents homeland of Guyana, amount to less than that of Reverend John Wesley? Do the frontline despatches of Orwell or Hemingway tell us any more about man’s inhumanity to man, than the writings of Frederick Douglass or Ignatius Sancho? In short, is the history of the African slave trade not a consummate education in the human condition, from its dark recesses to its moments of enlightenment?
Before this year, for the most part, people like myself – the descendents of enslaved peoples – have often been sidelined from the debate. But we should remember that emancipation from slavery was only the beginning of a slow, painful process, the beginning of an arduous journey out of servitude and second-class citizenship, back towards equality.
To reduce the slave trade to a battle waged on colour lines, to suggest that it was merely about white people oppressing black people is dangerously simplistic.
Before, during and after abolition, many indigenous people from the British Isles refused to be complicit in the slave trade. The British working class was not blind to the evils of the slave trade. Many workers, right here in the UK, knew of the injustices that Africans on the plantations of the Americas were experiencing – and they stood up and were counted.
In Sheffield – the “Steel City” – many local merchants profited from the production and the sale of metal chains and shackles and used on slaves throughout the 18th century. However, Sheffield was also vocal in its resistance to slavery. The city sent two significant petitions to Parliament: one in 1789 involving over 700 metal workers and one in 1793 containing 8,000 signatures – some 25 to 30 per cent of the adult population of that city.
And over one hundred years before women gained the right to vote in Britain, tens of thousands of female abolitionists signed thousands of petitions, which were sent to Parliament. Women like Hannah More were also instrumental in boycotting slave-manufactured produce, particularly sugar. The female abolition movement was arguably the birth of British feminism, long before – many, many years before, the Suffragettes were formed.
Clearly, the British people have much to be proud of when it comes to ending slavery.
I think it is fair to say that there is much left to address in how we learn about this period of our history. It’s rare that children will talk about the intervening time between the legal end of the slave trade and the cessation of transatlantic slavery. I was a young adult before I learnt about the many slave uprisings that had begun to make the trade economically unviable. And many books don’t chart the grotesque treatment meted out to rebellious slaves, nor the many women who were routinely raped, or the innumerable children who grew up with no knowledge of who their parents were.
It is perhaps time to discuss, openly and honestly, without fear of recrimination or blame, how the dismantling of language, of culture and customs, and the displacement of millions of people descended from those slaves has affected not only them, but many parts of Africa, and the world view of the continent.
And we need to talk about the systematic division of persons along a hierarchy of colour, darkest at the bottom, lightest at the top, which arguably continues to pervade our language and attitudes to this day.
That must change. A new legacy must be built if we are to move from this year of commemoration with a sense that all Britain’s people, black and white and of all racial and ethnic backgrounds, can and must learn from the past in order to build for the future.
Because the history of Africa did not begin on a slave ship. African history goes back thousands of years, and yet in my school days, the only time I saw a face like mine was in a geography book that contained a section on what was then called the Third World. It’s an image that’s played out on the news. It’s an image that’s played out on Comic Relief. It’s poignant that this year we had Moira Stuart presenting a BBC documentary on Wilberforce.
We must therefore communicate to our entire nation, black and white, but particularly to our youth, that the slave trade was neither the beginning nor the end of African history, but a significant and defining chapter within it. But even bigger than that when we talk about one planet living, which is happening so often in relation to climate change, we should remember that that can only really be fostered with a systematic understanding of our world history.
THE BRITISH BLACK EXPERIENCE
Up until this year, for many people in this country, their understanding of the history of the slave trade was learnt from the television series “Roots”. Many families, black and white, sat and watched the serialisation of Alex Haley’s epic work, glued to a TV screen for eight weeks in the late 1970s. This was of course a study of slavery in America.
For the people of America, for whom the legacy of slavery has been played out in situ, the collective memory is different perhaps to our own. The slave trade has been a core part of their learned history, as devastating as it was unifying. Modern day African Americans are often able to trace their heritage back directly to the enslaved elders in their ancestry, and are able to point to the many leaders of African descent who led the struggle against the injustice of lynch mobs, Jim Crow laws, segregation, the Ku Klux Klan and other oddities borne out of that internalised form of colonialism.
The presence of people of African descent in the Americas was ultimately not of their choosing. As Malcolm X famously said, “We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us.” And the proposed cessation of the use of slaves caused such a schism in that country, and that so many Americans of all colours lost their lives in the ensuing civil strife that engulfed the country that it’s clear that has made sure that the slave trade and slavery are forever stamped on the national consciousness of all Americans.
The British experience is different and that’s one of the things that’s emerging from this year. The majority of early black migrants came to this country by their own volition from the commonwealth – on the Windrush, on planes, on a wing and a prayer, in search of a better life. While it is widely known that immigrants of colour often received an extremely frosty welcome upon their arrival, it is also clear that many of the black people arriving with my parents’ generation were not only invited by the Government, they arrived as citizens of this country.
And the slave trade, and its relationship with Britain, can therefore seem that much more remote, which to my mind, has made its effects on the national psyche so much more difficult to discern.
And it’s true to say that the experience of white British slave in the Americas would appear remote to the white middle class in Hull.
This historical detachment, is often experienced by Black Britons, and specifically those of Caribbean heritage, as a sense of disenfranchisement. Black people have an experience and a relationship with this nation, which is far different from indigenous Europeans; it is a relationship, as I have said, which is not conjoined with the land in the way that African-Americans feel connected to the earth beneath their feet. And the land of my parents was little more than a halfway house in terms of their physical and spiritual journey. Black people in the Diaspora are far removed from their ancestral homeland.
I believe that, consciously or subconsciously, this physical, spiritual and cultural separation, which has evolved over centuries, today, can and does feed into an individual’s lack of cultural identity, which in turn can lead to feelings of resentment and alienation toward, and from, this country – our home.
It is a tragedy that this aftermath is being played out in the worst of our inner city streets of London, Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, in constituencies such as mine in Tottenham, where a significant minority of poorly educated, disaffected black youths, usually male – despite being born in this country, despite being part of a progressive democracy and all that that provides – feel on the fringes of it.
A cursory assessment of some of the facts and figures throws up some challenging questions. Why are half the black children in this country brought up in single-parent households like the one I grew up in? Why is it that there are three times as many black males in prison and mental health institutions than in tertiary education? Why are black children, and again, especially boys, almost three times more likely to be permanently excluded from school than their white counterparts?
I do not for a moment claim that the slave trade is directly and solely responsible for these outcomes, but I do believe that the confusion of identity, the disempowerment, the overt racism and endemic poverty brought upon later generations has left many Black Britons, young and old, incapable of following Bob Marley’s command to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery.
Of course, the legacy of slavery and abolition has a flipside that enriches, emboldens, and energises this country as well. On those same inner city streets, black youths are present, building their communities, engaging in local politics, supporting their peers and families, reinventing the notion of “the black community” for the sons and daughters of those sons and daughters that came from the Caribbean and Africa in search of a better life.
I also see the positive side of the legacy on the streets of my constituency, such as the Let’s Be Positive youth group, using music and arts to spread a positive message to all ethnicities. And despite the statistics and whatever we might read in the news, the overwhelming majority of black youths are defying the negative stereotypes, with many attaining good academic results, going on to university or training, good careers, business, trades and professions.
And I may sound like a hard taskmaster when I say I believe that this must become the rule, rather than the exception. But I expect more from our young people, the communities that raise them and the governments that are ultimately the custodians of their wellbeing. And I expect more because I believe that the legacy of Wilberforce, Equiano and the others deserves more.
Everyone that lives in this country is part of the fabric of it – we are inextricably woven into it regardless of race, colour or creed. Each of our hopes, fears and dreams are Britain’s hopes, fears and dreams. We share our triumphs and our travails as a nation, not as a separate, isolated and disconnected body with no stake in wider society. The very notion of the black community is one founded on a sense of solidarity, not isolation.
But how do we move on? How do we reframe the legacy of slavery and this period of our history, and reverse a trend of alienation, fear, and despair that is affecting our young in ever greater numbers? How can we use this year of discourse and debate, creative endeavour and commemoration to build a platform on which future generations capitalise?
I see the answers to these pressing questions in three parts:
First, we must tackle the inequality, discrimination and racism that still lives with us today, levelled particularly at people of ethnic minority living in the UK.
Second, we must strive to do more combat poverty and inequality across the globe, particularly in Africa, which is home to the 23 poorest countries in the world.
And third, we must make every effort to eliminate modern day slavery in whatever form it takes, and wherever it rears its ugly head.
THE WIDER FRAMEWORK
So, how far advanced are we in meeting these challenges? Well, of course, I am proud to say that Britain is taking the lead globally, when it comes to dealing with these issues.
We have doubled our aid budget since 1997, led first by Clare Short and now Hillary Benn. In 2006, we spent nearly seven billion pounds on foreign development assistance, with £1 billion of that going toward supporting poverty reduction in Africa. This budget will increase as we work towards the UN target of providing 0.7 per cent of national income on development spending by 2013.
We know that poverty and social exclusion are at the root forms of slavery and forced labour today and we must strive to eradicate poverty and the social injustices that causes these abuses.
We know that education is central to tackling the inequality and disadvantage that makes people vulnerable to slavery and exploitation. It is fundamental to our ultimate aim of ending global poverty and Britain has pledged £8.5 billion over the next 10 years to help enable all children to go to school.
In 2005, we witnessed the historic deal by the G8 nations to cancel a further $50 billion of multilateral debts owed by the world’s poorest countries. Twenty-two of these, including 18 in Africa, have already benefited from that.
We used our presidency of the G8 and European Union in 2005 to push for a renewed global commitment to the United Nation’s eight ‘Millennium Goals’:
• To halve the number of people living in extreme poverty and hunger
• To ensure that all children receive primary education
• To promote sexual equality and give women a stronger voice
• To reduce child death rates
• To improve the health of mothers
• To combat HIV and Aids, malaria and other diseases
• To ensure the environment is protected
• And to build a global partnership with those working in development
And while we focus on this bicentenary and its lasting effects on our society, we must also look overseas, to those who lack the freedom to earn a decent living, to work in safe, clean conditions and to express their own political or religious views.
As such, we are working with organisations around the world to enhance the human rights of poor people. Through our development programmes and I hope our diplomatic efforts, we will continue to lobby governments to ratify the UN human rights treaties, and help them to abide by the obligations that those treatise place on nation states, and put them into practice through legislation and policy.
The British Government is also supporting conflict reduction and conflict resolution in places like Sierra Leone – a nation built on the foundation of freedom and African self-determination – by building the political and social means to enable the representation of all groups in a society, the promotion of human rights and the resolution of disputes and grievances without recourse to violence.
And we’re encouraging partner governments to develop policies that take account of the needs of all groups in society, and we are giving our support to civil society organisations to give excluded groups a voice, to ensure their participation in poverty reduction programmes and to build social movements that demand stronger accountability.
And I’ve seen that work in Congo, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Guyana. In the end, it must be these who take forward these lost stories which might have been forgotten in previous administrations.
We’ve given our support for the implementation of core labour standards and the work of the International Labour Organisation – the body responsible for setting and monitoring international labour standards. It is unacceptable that in the 21st century millions of people are being made to work in 18th century conditions.
And we will continue to give our support to business to ensure that they apply internationally accepted labour standards, in order to turn sweatshops, workhouses and plantation labour into unpleasant relics of a bygone age.
EDUCATING OUR YOUTH
As I indicated earlier, I believe education is the single most important tool in changing how our communities think about sensitive issues like the transatlantic slave trade and its legacy. So far this year, many schools up and down the country have embraced this bicentenary and rightly used it as the portal into a difficult but crucial aspect of global history.
I have visited many schools, community groups, local authorities and organisations and seen the fantastic work they have produced on the history of the abolition movement – from learning packs and resources, to exhibitions and public debates.
And I believe that educationalists and educators, teachers and historians, the media and communicators across the board owe the legacy of slavery a debt: and that debt is to put the African experience in a wider, more nuanced context than we have previously seen.
As a nation, we should be open about both the positive and the negative elements of our history. We make progress not by denying the facts about the past, but from learning and drawing resolve from them.
Britain didn’t build a 300-year old empire by being nice. The Britain of the slave trade was also the Britain of poor children forced to work down the mines and up chimneys. It was also the Britain of the vicious press-gangs stalking dockyards, forcibly recruiting young men into the navy. It was also the Britain in which only upper the class men were permitted to vote.
Now is the opportune moment to examine the complexities of the legacy of slavery with openness and candour, to move beyond the stereotypes and prejudices that justified the slave trade but still sadly persist today.
But, what I suppose, what is much harder to face however, is how we reconcile the past with the present, and how reconciliation can move us forward to the future. We are all aware that we live now in a climate in which people have a legitimate right to question the state, the corporate world, the church and other institutions on their culpability in this period of our history.
I also feel it is necessary for all people of Britain – all of us - to reclaim the history of slavery, to know it, to own it. The shame of slavery is not on our heads: it’s on the heads of those that committed it, upon those who still commit it today and deny the very real and evil consequences of it.
We can all have the courage to take individual responsibility and become educators ourselves, not just to the converted – our friends and family – but also to the wider community, which may through no fault of if its own be ignorant to the issues you’ve discussed over the last three days.
Regardless of what Wilberforce may or may not have achieved, it is obvious that we live in a world far more progressive than that of 1807. However, we still live in a world that is tarnished by slavery, human trafficking and archaic forms of indentured labour. If the name Wilberforce stands for anything today, it should be the will and the spirit of the British people to reject all forms of slavery, as they stand here and abroad.
And it cannot happen a moment too soon. Education is the key that gives children the chance to escape poverty and exploitation, reducing vulnerability to contemporary slavery and trafficking. It is also one of the ways that we will combat the problems that are scarring our inner cities – the violent crime, anti-social behaviour, poverty and racial intolerance that are all too readily accepted as “facts of life”.
This is why the proposed new history curriculum for Key Stage 3 includes the slave trade as a compulsory element for the first time. Every young person in this country will now study the facts of Britain’s involvement in one of the most inhuman acts in history, and its role in developing the British Empire and modern society. It is crucial to understand why the slave trade happened, why it lasted for so long, and the long-term social and historical impact it has had on Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Students will also have the opportunity to examine how the Society for the Abolition of the slave Trade created a mass movement and how it relates to the anti-slavery and civil rights movements I mentioned earlier. In looking at the past in this way, young people will also learn about contemporary issues such as human rights – a key feature of the Citizenship Curriculum – and, some would say, the heart of what citizenship is all about.
The teaching of black and African history, has always been part of the curriculum. But it needs great improvement. To help teachers to do this, the government has provided nearly £1 million for the development of the Understanding of Slavery Initiative.
And through this Initiative, we have developed high quality teaching materials for use in museums and classrooms, and training for teachers in how to approach the subject. The project is providing an enduring legacy of valuable learning resource, which supports the teaching of the Citizenship and History curriculum, and improving awareness and confidence in teaching slavery and the slave trade.
We now have a real commitment to teaching the subject effectively, but also a consensus regarding the concerns many people have regarding these issues of identity and cultural diversity. There are still many societal differences regarding the way we approach these subjects. But by bringing them into the core of the history curriculum, we will stimulate debate among young people and inspire them to learn more about a subject that has been under-represented in our schools until now, and I’m very pleased that we’ve been able to deliver it.
I spoke earlier of how a significant number of young black people are failing to use education as a vehicle in life. I now want to spell out in greater detail the scale of the problem.
Most ethnic minority groups have improved their performance at GCSE and some minority ethnic groups continue to outperform their peers significantly at school, while for others the achievement gap remains wide.
• Black pupils are the lowest attaining group at Key Stage 4, for example, only a third of Black pupils achieved 5 good A*-C grades including English and Maths in 2006 compared to the national average of nearly 45 per cent of the white population.
• Black pupils are disproportionately more likely to be identified as having special educational needs, particularly behavioural, emotional and social difficulties
• And there are proportionately more Black students in Pupil Referral Units compared with the proportion of these groups in mainstream schools
Nevertheless, a combination of actions is being taken to close the achievement gap.
One of the most successful of these is “Aiming High” – the government’s long-term strategy to raise the achievement of Black and Minority Ethnic pupils.
Results for African-Caribbean students involved in the Aiming High projects are clearly improving. Between 2003 and 2005 the percentage of African-Caribbean boys achieving Level 5 and above at the end of Key Stage 3 was up 12 per cent in English and 13 per cent in maths – rates that were well above average. Grades and behaviour are improving with the help of student mentoring programmes, classroom management training for teachers and more effective communication between parents and schools.
I want to see these principles used in all classrooms in Britain, combined with schemes such as the Ethnic Minority Achievement Grant – worth £178 million this year – which provides funding to enable schools and Local Authorities to take action to raise the attainment levels of minority ethnic groups.
Supplementary schools, after school, Saturday, Sunday and mentoring groups can also be of vital importance here. As we know, a child’s education does not begin and end behind the school gates. The learning environment parents provide for their children is just as important, and a positive peer group can be just as influential as a good teacher.
And again, that is why I will always appreciate the work of groups like the National Black Boys Can Association, Boys to Men and Eastside Young Leaders Academy, for if we fail to improve the educational standards and opportunities open to all children, then quite frankly, all of our society will lose that.
Inequality still blights this country. This is evidenced not just by a rise in crude racist attacks and overt signs of prejudice, but the poorer outcomes of people of ethnic minority and those of lower socio-economic backgrounds, what they face in health, housing, criminal justice and employment, as well as education.
The government is seeking to address these inequalities by ensuring that every individual, whatever their racial or ethnic origin, is able to fulfil their potential through the employment of equal opportunities, rights and responsibilities. The UK was one of the first countries to introduce legislation against race discrimination in 1965, and now we have some of the most progressive laws on race equality and race relations in the world.
But we still have a long way to go.
And whilst our legislation may be free of racism, our country is not. Part of the abolitionists’ legacy must be to liberate people’s minds from the grip of racial prejudice.
We must also renew our efforts to stand up and speak out against racist individuals and organisations that masquerade as legitimate political spokespeople – the sort that use fear and intimidation, propaganda and lies to foster discontent.
Because we should not and we cannot, tolerate racists disrupting our communities but, of course, this is one of the challenges that still lives and breathes. I am under no illusions that these are challenges that can be overcome in a single year, but we must use the opportunities this bicentenary gives us to build on the good work we have started.
MODERN DAY SLAVERY
Of course, one of the greatest challenges facing us today, is how to deal with the modern, variant forms of modern slavery that are seen all over the world.
As unimaginable as it seems to many, we know that slavery still lives and breathes in the 21st century. Millions of people are denied their freedom, their liberty, their dignity, so that others can profit from their misery.
Many of the people forced into slavery, indentured labour or servitude are illegal immigrants and poor migrant workers – people with virtually no rights.
According to the UN, there are over 150 million migrants and refugees worldwide, and they are present in virtually every sector of the global economy. However, as an unrecognised group, they are highly vulnerable to violations of basic human rights. Large numbers of migrants, including children, are employed in agriculture and exposed to dangerous pesticides, resulting in short and long-term health effects and sometimes in death.
In Africa, Niger - the world’s poorest country - this has become the new hub where West African migrants converge. Lorries packed with 100 or more migrants set out openly from bus stations there, where corrupt police take a cut of the smuggling profits. Migration has also caused increased xenophobia in countries like Libya, where in 2000 Libyans murdered 100-500 Africans and burned down the Niger embassy.
But the barbaric exploitation of migrant workers is not confined to the fields and sweatshops of the developing world. It is happening right here, right now, under our very noses in the UK.
Many of us will recall with horror the tragic discovery of 54 Chinese migrant workers who had suffocated in the back of a truck in Dover while being smuggled into Britain. You will remember too the 21 Chinese cockle pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay, forced to risk their lives for the “snakeheads” and gang masters who act as modern day plantation overseers. Press reports of Eastern European women being smuggled into this country and forced to work as prostitutes now seem commonplace.
As the political reformer and abolitionist, Thomas Hardy, asserted, the rights of man “are not confined to this small island, but are extended to the whole human race, black or white, high or low, rich or poor”. These words ring true today, as they did 200 years ago. We cannot and will not tolerate this form of slavery in this country, or any other.
Human trafficking is one of the greatest human rights abuses of our time. Intelligence indicates that the average price for a trafficked adult woman in the UK is around £2000-£3000.
And, this bicentenary offers an important opportunity to raise awareness of these contemporary forms of slavery.
The Government is committed to tackling trafficking in human beings, domestically and internationally, and we are determined that the measures we take will deal with the criminals responsible for it to justice.
On 23 March we published the UK Action Plan on trafficking – an end to end strategy to tackle human trafficking – from preventing trafficking in source and transit countries, through to providing support to victims.
On the same day, we also signed the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings and this will build on our strategy to combat human trafficking by providing minimum standards of protection and victim support.
On March 26, we launched a worldwide lobbying campaign to ratify and implement international standards that prohibit slavery, which included United Nations and the International Labour Organisation instruments. We will push for further ratification by the end of this year.
It’s clear, however, that there is much more work to be done before we can mark the end of human trafficking in a way that is appropriate for this bicentenary.
THE RESPONSE TODAY
As the Minister for Culture, but also as an MP representing one of the most diverse constituencies in Europe, I am proud of how our cultural institutions have led the way in recognising, understanding and commemorating this important year of events. Their response shows just how far they can reach into our communities and what an impact cultural and heritage institutions can have.
In March, Wilberforce House – the birthplace of one of this city’s most celebrated sons and its oldest public museum -reopened after a multimillion-pound refurbishment.
And it’s wonderful that we’ll have the International Slavery Museum in August – a brand new, world-class cultural and educational venue will open this August.
Other events will be held throughout the year at some of our biggest museums and arts venues, including the British Museum, the V&A, the National Gallery in London and dozens of others around the country, including Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, the Manchester Museum, the Royal Naval Museum in Portsmouth – all have frankly done something we can be proud of.
The Heritage Lottery has awarded over £10 million to more than 100 bicentenary projects across the country. This includes the biggest ever grant to a community group - £408,000 to help the Leeds West Indian Centre Charitable Trust run a programme of activities involving the local community in the commemoration of this bicentenary. Many of their other grants have also gone to small institutions and community groups such as in my constituency and in places like Watford.
My department is working closely with the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, along with other cultural and heritage bodies to secure the long-term legacy of this bicentenary to make sure this work is embedded.
And I have no doubt that by confronting and presenting this type of contentious and emotive issue, organisations will develop new ways of working and learn more about public attitudes towards racism, discrimination, community and identity.
For over these past few months, as I have visited projects in Leeds, Liverpool, Bristol, London and now Hull, two things have struck me.
First, the immense amount of public interest in the subject. Lecture theatres, galleries and events that were poorly attended in the past have given way to packed audiences and enthusiastic crowds of people eager to learn a history that had for so long been swept under the carpet.
Second, I have seen and felt how raw some of the feelings are when we touch on the highly charged issue of the slave trade. I never imagined that this bicentenary would have, or could have passed without stirring emotions. In fact, I think one of the most important things this bicentenary has achieved thus far is to stimulate debate and give a voice to those that previously were unheard.
Many of you will have seen the protestor who interrupted the National Service of Commemoration at Westminster Abbey last month. While I do not necessarily agree with his methods, I do think he made a powerful statement and the bicentenary has reopened many old wounds.
THE LEGACY
But, in addressing the legacies of slavery, and this bicentenary year, it has been important to highlight the progress that has been made and to remind ourselves that Britain remains, as it was 200 years ago, a world leader in campaigning for freedom, equality and social justice.
But more importantly, we need to highlight the need to close the gaps in education for people in the poorest parts of the world, particularly in Africa.
We need to highlight the need to close the gaps in education that help to alienate and disenfranchise too many young black boys.
And we need to highlight the fact that slavery still exists and make it our mission to eradicate it once and for all.
The spirit of the abolitionists is, I think, alive and well today.
In the House of Lords archives room is the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. It reads:
“Be it therefore enacted by the King’s most Excellent Majesty... That from and after the First Day of May one thousand eight hundred and seven, the African Slave Trade, and all manner of dealing and trading in the Purchase, Sale, Barter, or Transfer of Slaves, or of Persons intended to be sold, transferred, used or dealt with as Slaves, practiced or carried on, in, at, to or from any Part of the Coast or Countries of Africa, shall be... utterly abolished, prohibited, and declared to be unlawful.”
The Act was a promise, but a promise as yet unfulfilled.
Please click here to read more about the conference and the work of the Wilberforce Institute.
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