"Together, through our actions and our commitment … we will able to eradicate the vestiges of slavery and combat new forms of servitude that represent intolerable violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms."

Director General of UNESCO Koïchiro Matsuura on International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, 23 August 2004

EU makes moves on trafficking protection

In April 2004, the European Union finally adopted a directive on residence permits for victims of trafficking. Although this is a positive step, the scope of the directive is limited as it is only for trafficked people who have shown a clear intention to co-operate with the authorities.

Despite this, the measure does contain some positive elements, including giving trafficked people a reflection period, a period of time that they may stay in the country. Under the Directive, all EU states, except those like the United Kingdom which have negotiated an "opt out" from this type of legislation, have to make sure their national law complies with it before 6 August 2006.

This decision gives national organisations an opportunity to engage with their governments to try to ensure that the Directive is applied in a way which will protect and support trafficked people, particularly by defining how long the reflection period should be.

Freed bonded labourer demands family return

January 2005 will mark former bonded labourer Munno Bheel's second year of protest demanding his family's release from slavery in Pakistan.

On 19 January 2003, he began a hunger strike in front of the Hyderabad Press Club, Sindh drawing attention to the abduction of his family six years ago. Landlord Abdur Rahman Marri and six other men abducted them on 2 May 1998 from a farm where they were working as free labourers. During the abduction, other workers were beaten and seriously injured.

The Bheel family, including Munno, worked as bonded labourers for Marri, before being freed with the help of the organisation the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan's Special Task Force for Sindh in 1996.

Since the abduction, Munno, the Task Force and other NGOs including Anti-Slavery International have been trying to locate the Bheels and have them released. Promises from senior police and politicians have led to nothing, even though bonded labour has been illegal since 1992 under the Bonded
Labour System (Abolition) Act.

According to the Task Force, last year police removed Munno, beat him and pressured him to withdraw his accusation that his family was abducted.

The international cocoa industry announced on 6 October the launch of a pilot scheme in Côte d'Ivoire to monitor the use of illegal child labour.

The programme will begin in November and will work closely with the Côte d'Ivoire Government to develop ongoing methods for monitoring up to 80,000 small farms supplying cocoa for export.

Anti-Slavery International is also calling for the industry to tackle other forms of forced labour apart from illegal child labour and to offer a price guarantee to the small farmers similar to that offered by fair trade organisations.

The move stems from the Cocoa Protocol, which was agreed in 2001 by the cocoa industry, a number of human rights organisations and trade unions, after worldwide attention was drawn to the issue of slavery in cocoa production.

Fifty-six Peruvian men, women and children trafficked to the United States were rescued by authorities in Long Island, New York.

Federal authorities raided three houses on 21 June, exposing what is reported to be one of the largest trafficking rings found in the US so far. Those rescued told of being forced to work in as many as three jobs at a time for as long as 16 hours a day for up to four years. Authorities say that the traffickers controlled every aspect of their lives forcing the workers to hand over all of their earnings.

Many were told they owed up to US$12,500 for being brought to the US, but the debts never diminished. The three traffickers, a Peruvian family living in Long Island, lured people with promises of visas and work in the US. But when they arrived, they confiscated their passports and threatened to have them deported if they left. They also said they would hurt their families in Peru if they tried to escape.

Since being rescued, all 56 people have been provided with housing and are being helped to adjust to freedom. The traffickers have been arrested and are being held without bail.

©Caroline Irby/ Network/Save the Children.
Children who have fled from raids in Darfur, Sudan

The African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights held an extraordinary session in Pretoria, South Africa to discuss the crisis in Darfur, Sudan.

The meeting, held from 18-19 September, adopted the Commission's report of its July fact-finding mission. The mission sought to investigate human rights abuses in Darfur, including the systematic destruction of property, raids, mass killings, and rape and abduction of women and children by the government-supported Janjaweed militias.

Due to a variety of problems, the mission stated they were unable to see all of the areas they needed, including some of the internally displaced people camps in Sudan and refugee camps in Chad. The Commission agreed it would send a second mission to continue the investigations.

Organisations also present, including Anti-Slavery International and other international, African and Sudanese NGOs, were concerned with the gaps in the reporting and lack of access. Over one million people have been displaced as a result of the raids by government-supported militias. This violence is disturbingly similar to the slave raids that plagued southern Sudan for decades and resulted in the enslavement of thousands of people.

"It's not the trafficker alone who is seen as a criminal, but a trafficked person is often also perceived as illegal: illegal worker, illegal prostitute, when we in fact should look at the protection and assistance to the victim."
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Director Christian Strohal, 23 September 2004

"Slavery and the slave trade represent a tragic chapter in the history of the world .... But it cannot simply be consigned to the past - the legacies of slavery are all around us .... There is a duty on us all to remember, understand and apply the lessons of these legacies to the future."
UK Home Office Minister for Race Equality Fiona Mactaggart, 23 August 2004