Willingly
no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
-- Aeschylus
| Slavery
was abolished 150 years ago, right? While it is true that slavery is illegal almost
everywhere on earth, the fact is there are more slaves today than there ever were...
-- Robert Alan
|  |
 | *
“If you love your children, if you love your country, if you love the God of love,
clear your hands from slaves, burden not your children or country with them.”
-- Richard Allen |
"Slavery
was, in a very real sense, the first international human rights issue to come
to the fore. It led to the adoption of the first human rights laws and to the
creation of the first human rights non-governmental organization. And yet despite
the efforts of the international community to combat this abhorrent practice,
it is still widely prevalent in all its insidious forms, old and new. The list
is painfully long and includes traditional chattel slavery; bonded labour; serfdom;
and forced labour, including of children, women and migrants, and often for the
purpose of sexual exploitation, domestic servitude and ritualistic and religious
reasons....
--
Kofi Annan |
|
Human
beings are not property. On the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery,
let us reaffirm the inherent dignity of all men, women and children. And let us
redouble our efforts so that the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights
— 'no one shall be held in slavery or servitude' — ring true."
--
Kofi Annan
|
*
The
more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility we bear, toward others as
well as ourselves.
--
Oscar Arias Sanchez |  |
 | *
We could eradicate slavery. The laws are in place. The multi-nationals, the world
trade organizations, the United Nations, they could end slavery, but they're not
going to do it until and unless we demand it.
-- Kevin
Bales the
4th right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is that there can be no
slavery. Virtually every human being agrees that it is a moral wrong. Those key
battles are won by people who went before us, who had the really tough job. Our
job is simply to make sure that countries enforce their own laws and that slaves,
when freed, have an opportunity for rehabilitation, reintegration, education,
and so forth
-- Kevin
Bales |
It
surprises people that there’s actually a very large number of slaves in the world
today—our best estimate is 27 million. And that is defining a slave in a very
narrow way; we’re not talking about sweatshop workers or people who are just poor,
we’re talking about people who are controlled by violence, who cannot walk away,
who are being held against their will, who are being paid nothing.
-- Kevin
Bales
Slavery
is what slavery's always been: About one person controlling another person using
violence and then exploiting them economically, paying them nothing. That's what
slavery's about
-- Kevin
Bales
“It’s
as if all identity has been stolen from them, except their identity as slaves.”
--
Kevin Bales
We
have to make it clear to the multi-nationals that slavery is too high a price
to pay for cheap goods
-- Kevin Bales
For
some slaves, the first step out of bondage is to learn to see their lives with
new eyes. Their reality is a social world where they have their place and some
assurance of a subsistence diet. Born into slavery,
they cannot easily redefine their lives outside the frame of enslavement.
--
Kevin Bales
Slavery
is theft -- theft of a life, theft of work, theft of any property or produce,
theft even of the children a slave might have borne.
-- Kevin
Bales
 |
millions of
our fellow human beings continue to live as contemporary slaves, victims of abominable
practices like human trafficking, forced labour and sexual exploitation. Countless
children are forced to become soldiers, work in sweat shops or are sold by desperate
families. Women are brutalized and traded like commodities. Entire households
and villages labour under debt bondage.
-- Ban
Ki-moon On
this International Day for the Abolition of Slavery let us reaffirm the inherent
dignity of all men, women and children. And let us redouble our efforts to build
societies in which slavery truly is a term for the history books.
-- Ban
Ki-moon |
It
is up to each and every one of us to raise our voice against crimes that deprive
countless victims of their liberty, dignity and human rights. We have to work
together to realize the equal rights promised to all by the United Nations Charter.
And we must collectively give meaning to the words of the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights that “no one shall be held in slavery or servitude”.
-- Ban
Ki-moon
"The
slave labors, but with no cheer—it is not the road to respectability, it will
honor him with no citizens’ trust, it brings no bread to his family, no grain
to his garner, no leisure in after-days, no books or papers to his children. It
opens no school-house door, builds no church, rears for him no factory, lays no
keel, fills no bank, earns no acres. With sweat and toil and ignorance he consumes
his life, to pour the earnings into channels from which he does no drink, into
hands that never honor him. But perpetually rob and often torment.”
-- Henry
Ward Beecher |
|
As legal slavery passed, we entered into a permanent period of unemployment and
underemployment from which we have yet to emerge.
-- Julian
Bond |
|
See,
it's no in between: you're either free or you're a slave.
-- H. Rap Brown
*
None
who have always been free can understand the terrible fascinating power of the
hope of freedom to those who are not free.
-- Pearl
S. Buck Men
would rather be starving and free than fed in bonds.
--
Pearl S. Buck |
|
 | The
well-being and the hopes of the peoples of the world can never be served until
peace - as well as freedom, honor and self-respect - is secure.
-- Ralph
J. Bunche |
 | *
“We are asking people to understand that slavery still exists today; in fact,
according to a recent New York Times article, if you count the number of women
and children in bonded labor, domestic slavery or sexual slavery today, there
are more slaves in the world than at any other time in history.”
-- Charlotte Bunch
|
We
must show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after
the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after
slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings
for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time."
-- George W. Bush
 | *
"Everyone
has a right to peaceful coexistence, the basic personal freedoms, the alleviation
of suffering, and the opportunity to lead a productive life..."
-- Jimmy
Carter |
Slavery
can only be abolished by raising the character of the people who compose the nation;
and that can be done only by showing them a higher one.
-- Maria Weston Chapman
Why
should workers agree to be slaves in a basically authoritarian structure? They
should have control over it themselves. Why shouldn't communities have a dominant
voice in running the institutions that affect their lives?
-- Noam
Chomsky | 
|
Freedom
Day
- February 1
End
Slavery Day
- December 2
