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US President George Bush's Africa visit is drawing vital attention
to the Transatlantic Slave Trade legacy. But slavery has not been
relegated to the past - it is a brutal reality for millions of people
around the world today.
Across Africa alone, tens of thousands of children are trafficked
each year throughout West and Central Africa. Girls as young as
six are taken from Benin to Gabon as domestic workers, boys are
trafficked from Mali to Côte d'Ivoire into agricultural work,
and children are trafficked to work hawking in markets, in fishing
and prostitution.
From Nigeria, women and girls are trafficked into Europe's sex
industry.
In Niger, a new survey on slavery - the first of its kind - conducted
by Anti-Slavery International's local partners Timidria, found of
11,000 people surveyed, the vast majority are slaves; expected to
work without pay for their traditional masters.
In Sudan, an estimated 14,000 people have been abducted and forced
into slavery since 1983.
"Slavery is a violation affecting millions of women, children
and men throughout the world. It is illegal under international
law, yet it is allowed to continue. No country is immune from this
most fundamental of human rights abuses; we all share the responsibility
to put an end to slavery once and for all," Mary Cunneen,
Director of
Anti-Slavery International said.
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