Mayor says sorry for London slave trade role

In an important move forward, London's Mayor Ken Livingston apologised for the capital's role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade and declared 23 August the city's annual slavery memorial day.

Marking International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition on 23 August, the mayor declared "I offer an apology on behalf of London and its institutions for their role in the Transatlantic Slave Trade ... It was racial murder of not just those who were transported but generations of enslaved African men, women and children .... We live with the consequences today."

This will help increase pressure for a formal apology from the Government and a national annual slavery memorial day.

All institutions that profited from the trade have a moral duty to acknowledge the implications of their involvement and address the lasting legacies. This could include developing programmes to tackle racism and discrimination.

Indian bonded labour activists arrested

Punjab authorities arrested Jai Singh, director of Anti-Slavery International's partner Volunteers for Social Justice (VSJ), and around 100 bonded labourers for demonstrating against bonded labour.

They were charged on 9 September with disturbing the peace as they marched through Sangrur District and were held in prison for one week.

The protest was part of a five-month 2,000 kilometre non-violent march across Punjab to raise awareness of bonded labour and demand its end.

Demonstrators in other parts of the state have been harassed and attacked by landlords as they continued the march. In one attack on 13 September, over 30 people, including women and children, were injured. Despite a police presence, there was no effort to stop the landlords' violence, a VSJ activist said.

The march will finish in the city of Ludhiana, Punjab on 6 December.

French court finds Burundi ex-minister guilty of slavery

On 17 September, a French court found the former Prime Minister of Burundi and his wife guilty of slavery.

Gabriele Mpozagara and his wife Candide were sentenced in absentia to 12 and 15 months in prison respectively for enslaving their nieces. Each was fined 10,000 euros (US$13,869), plus €24,000 in damages and interest to be paid to the older girl.

In 1994, the couple brought the girls, Chantal and Yvette, to live with them in France after their parents were killed in Burundi. But rather than improving their lives, they were kept in conditions of slavery. The older girl, Chantal, then 13, was made to work as a domestic servant. She was forced to work 16 to 17 hours a day, seven days a week cleaning the house and taking care of the couple's six children. The girls were deprived of food and kept in brutal conditions.

In 1998, they were rescued after they called the Child Help line and were helped by the organisations Enfance et Partage and Anti-Slavery International's French partner the Comité Contre l'Esclavage, which brought their case to court.

The case was delayed for eight years by Mpozagara's claiming diplomatic immunity. His claim was rejected by France's Supreme Court enabling it to go to trial.

Blue Plaque commemorates anti-slavery legend

English Heritage unveiled a Blue Plaque commemorating Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, leading anti-slavery campaigner and former vice-president of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (as Anti-Slavery International was then known).

Anti-Slavery International's Deputy Chair Lucy Chandler, who is Buxton's great-great-great-great granddaughter, unveiled the plaque at the ceremony on 26 September at The Director's House on Brick Lane, where Buxton lived and worked from 1808-1815.

Buxton led the parliamentary campaign against slavery, which successfully resulted in the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.

UK Government launches new crackdown on trafficking

The United Kingdom Government launched the second phase of its nationwide crackdown against trafficking for sexual exploitation on 3 October.

Pentameter 2 involves key agencies across the Government including Police, Immigration, Customs and the Serious Organised Crime Agency. It focuses on rescuing and protecting women who have been trafficked into forced prostitution, disrupting trafficking networks and arresting and prosecuting traffickers.

The operation is linked to an anti-trafficking project led by the UK and Poland, which is taking place in a number of European Union countries.

At the launch, Anti-Slavery International Director Aidan McQuade welcomed the Government's action, while stressing the need for "further resources to be dedicated to trafficking prevention, identifying and releasing trafficked people from both sexual exploitation and forced labour and providing them with the specialist support they need and deserve".

Anti-Slavery International has been involved in the consultative process which led to the development of Pentameter 2. We will continue to work with all of those involved in the operation to ensure the protection of trafficked people is at the centre of any anti-trafficking programme.

Current protection and support services for trafficked people are inadequate. There is only one specialist shelter for women trafficked into prostitution in the UK, which is funded for only 35 spaces. The Government estimates there are 4,000 people in the UK trafficked into prostitution at any one time.
There is also no support for people trafficked into forced labour and no specialist shelter for children trafficked to the UK.