Abbreviation Anti-Slavery Headquarters London Director Dr Aidan McQuade | Purpose Anti-slavery Region served International | |
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Motto Today's fight for tomorrow's freedom | ||
Anti-Slavery International is an international non-governmental organization, registered charity and a lobby group, based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1839, it is the world's oldest international human rights organization, and the only charity in the United Kingdom to work exclusively against slavery and related abuses.
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It owes its origins to the radical element of an older Anti-Slavery Society, known as the "Agency Committee of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions", which had substantially achieved abolition of slavery in the British Empire. A successor organisation, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was then created to campaign against the practice of slavery in other countries. In 1990 it was refounded as Anti-Slavery International, which works to combat slavery and related abuse, drawing attention to the continuing problem of slavery worldwide and campaigning for its recognition, abolition and eradication in the countries most affected today.
Overview
Anti-Slavery International is the only British charity exclusively committed to eliminating all forms of slavery and slavery like practices. Founded in 1839, it is the world’s oldest international human rights organisation and bases its work on the United Nations treaties against slavery.
It has consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council and observer status at the International Labour Organisation. It is a non-religious, non-political independent organisation.
Anti-Slavery International works closely with partner organisations from around the world to tackle all forms of modern slavery, including:
The organisation's goal is a world free from slavery and it uses following approaches to achieve it:
History
The first Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which was substantially achieved in 1838 under the terms of the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. In 1839, English activist Joseph Sturge formed a successor organisation, British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (today known as Anti-Slavery International), which worked to outlaw slavery in other countries.
In 1840, the World Anti-Slavery Convention was organised in London that attracted delegates from around the world (including from the United States of America, in the South of which slavery was at times referred to as "our peculiar institution") to the Freemasons' Hall, London on 12 June 1840. Many delegates were notable abolitionists, with Thomas Clarkson the key speaker, and the image of the meeting was captured in a remarkable painting that still hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London.
At the beginning of the 20th century Anti-Slavery Society campaigned against slavery practices perpetrated in the Congo Free State by King Leopold II of Belgium. It was the first campaign in history that used photography to document the abuses (photographs were taken by the missionary Alice Seeley Harris). The campaign eventually helped bring an end to Leopold's tyranny.
In the 1920s the Society helped end the indentured labour system in the British colonies after campaigning against the use of Indian and Chinese "coolies". In 1921 Played a pivotal role in ending the activities of the Peruvian Amazon Company, which was using indigenous slave labour in rubber production. The organisation also successfully lobbied for the League of Nations inquiry into slavery, which resulted in the 1926 Slavery Convention that obliged all ratifying states to end slavery. It also heavily influenced the content of the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.
During the 1990s Anti-Slavery, an original supporter of the End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking campaign (ECPAT), helped set up the UK branch. it was one of the organisers of the 1998 Global March against Child Labour, which helped lead to the adoption of a new ILO Convention on the Worst Forms of Child Labour, 1999 (No. 182).
In the 21st century it worked with Nepalese NGO INSEC to secure Government backing to abolish the Kamaiya form of bonded labour; in 2003 with local NGO Timidria conducted a survey that led to the criminalisation of slavery in Niger, and lobbied the Brazilian government to introduce a National Plan for the Eradication of Slavery.
In 2005 it organised a major campaign on child camel jockeys in the Gulf States, which influenced the UAE's decision to rescue and repatriate up to 3,000 child camel jockeys.
In the UK, it successfully lobbied to make trafficking of sexual and labour exploitation a criminal offence in 2004.
It also influenced the development of the Council of Europe Convention against trafficking in human beings.
In 2008 it supported a former slave, Hadijatou Mani, in obtaining the verdict of international ECOWAS court that found the state of Niger guilty of failing to protect her from slavery. The ruling set a legal precedent with respect to the obligations of states to protect its citizens from slavery.
In June 2010, following the campaign by Anti-Slavery International and Liberty the UK Parliament introduced a criminal offence of forced labour in the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.
In 2010 the organisation exposed the routine use of the forced labour of girls and young women in the manufacture of garments in Southern India for Western high streets, prompting, eventually, business and international civil society efforts to end the practice.
Anti-Slavery also successfully campaigned to force the UK government to sign up to a new EU anti-trafficking law to help better protect the victims and secure justice for people who have been trafficked (2011). It also played a big part in lobbying the International Labour Organisation to adopt a Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers in June 2011.
Modern-day slavery
Underground trade in human beings still exists in the twenty-first century. Regions heavily involved in the trade now include Eastern Europe, West Africa, South America and South Asia. Contemporary slavery comes in various forms, including bonded labour, early and forced marriages, forced labour, slavery by descent, and human trafficking.
Bonded labour often leads to slavery by descent: mimicking the circumstances of indentured servitude (in which, for the cost of medicine or travel, or for some other debt, labour is rendered for a specific period), the underlying loan often is not fully repaid before death, so the obligation to repay it is passed down to a family member. Work may be unrelenting, seven days a week and without break the year round.
Early and forced marriages involve women and girls who are forced into marriages in which they are subjected to harsh labor conditions and suffer physical violence.
Most early modern non-criminal forced labour, before the rise of abolitionist movements in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, generally was the lifelong work of slaves from Africa on plantations in the Western hemisphere. Present-day forced labour is less obvious; people are enslaved by governments, powerful individuals, or political parties and forced to work by threats of violence to the slaves or to their loved ones.
Human trafficking is the illegal transportation of kidnapped women, children, and men across international borders in order to put them into slavery at the destination. This form of modern slavery is one of the most common and may affect the most people: it is estimated that between 500,000 and 800,000 victims enter the trade each year.
Current projects
Anti-Slavery International is currently working on the Victim Protection Campaign better identify, protect and support the victims of slavery in the UK, Cotton Crimes campaign to end forced labour in Uzbekistan's cotton industry, and Home Alone campaign to end domestic slavery in the UK and across the world.
The organisation currently runs four programmes:
South Asia Programme primarily focuses on bonded labour in India's brick kilns, and bonded labour practices in Nepal's agriculture. It also runs a project focusing on construction workers migrating to Qatar.
Women and Girls Programme focuses on the gender aspect of vulnerability to slavery and works mainly on projects focusing on migrant domestic workers migrating from Nepal and Bangladesh to Lebanon and within India. It also runs a project supporting child domestic workers in Peru.
Africa Programme focuses on working against descent based slavery in Mauritania and Niger, as well as forced child begging in Senegal.
Europe Programme focuses on advocating for better policies protecting victims of slavery in the UK and the rest of Europe.
Increasingly the organisation focuses on slavery in global supply chains, encouraging businesses to identify risks of slavery and implement policies minimising the occurrence of slavery practices in their supply chains.
Anti-Slavery Award
Anti-Slavery International instituted the Anti-Slavery Award in 1991 to draw attention to the continuing problem of slavery in the world today and to provide recognition for long-term, courageous campaigning by organisations or individuals in the countries most affected.