On Sunday 18th February tens of thousands around the globe crossed racial and denominational divides to stand united against the ongoing human atrocity of slavery by praying for freedom and singing the historic song "Amazing Grace" written by John Newton (1725-1820) the former captain of a slave ship, who experienced a dramatic conversion during a storm at sea and became an effective preacher and advocate for abolition.
This Sunday marked the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade in the British Empire and was a call to action for churches to pursue justice. This campaign was inspired by the newly released film "Amazing Grace" which premiered at the Toronto Film Festival on the life and work of William Wilberforce whose work in the British Parliament led on March 25, 1807, to the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act that gave the roughly one million slaves in the British Empire their freedom. The film is due in NZ around June.
St. Anselms was one of the first churches in the world to celebrate this special day, meeting at 10 AM on the 18th February (while for churches in the northern hemisphere it was still GMT 11pm on Saturday 17th). We were one of over 4,000 churches in The United States, Canada, Great Britain, South Africa, Australia, Panama and Thailand to focus on the ongoing evils of slavery in the 21st century.
We began by looking at the Biblical background to slavery, which was part of the "great" ancient civilizations of Greece, Rome, Babylon and Egypt. Israel as a nation, had its beginnings under slavery in Egypt, yet despite its own experience of slavery, it differentiated between Israelite slaves and those from other nations.
Slavery was accepted as the "norm" by the early Church, the Apostle Paul having some advice for both slaves and their owners.
In the 15th century European powers captured or bought men, women and children as slaves from the west coast of Africa, and until the late 19th century, transported ten million of them across the Atlantic in which has been termed "Africa's holocaust". The sugar colonies of the West Indies and the cotton states of the USA were built on slave labour and provided a platform for the prosperity of the industrialised West today.
To our shame, the slave trade was driven largely by Christians for Christian consumers.
International aid agencies, Christian advocacy groups and UNESCO believe there are 27 million slaves worldwide, bought and sold at an average price of $100. That is the largest number of people ever enslaved at any point in world history according to Free the Slaves, a Washington, lobby group.
Slavery exists on a shocking scale all over the planet: from the dank brothels of Southeast Asia to the cocoa plantations of the Ivory Coast (where it is mainly children who are exploited), to the trafficking of women in Eastern Europe - but it has other no less horrible forms.
Stoking the bottom line are the more than 300,000 Japanese sex tourists who visit the Philippines every year, where prostitution is now its fourth largest source of Gross National Product. The Netherlands is a major destination country for trafficked women, helping fuel a sex industry that is estimated to be worth almost $1 billion per year.
Today up to 200,000 are held in conditions of slavery in the USA and perhaps one quarter of that number in Britain. Thousands of women work long hours without pay, trapped by their immigration status or the withholding of their passports by those they work for.
Women from impoverished Eastern European countries are "recruited" for employment in cities such as London and Paris and find themselves trapped in the sex industry. The London -based Anti-Slavery Society lists bonded labour, pawnage (akin to bonded labour under which the debtor provides another human being as security or collateral for a debt) and sex slaves.
In 2004 the Royal Canadian Mounted Police estimated 600 to 800 people are trafficked into Canada annually and an additional 1,500 to 2,000 individuals are trafficked through Canada into the United States.
According to the UNICEF, more than one million children are lured into the global sex trade every year. A U.S. government report published in 2003 estimated that nearly one million people worldwide are trafficked across international borders annually. This figure does not include those who are trafficked internally in places like Sudan.
"When I see man's inhumanity to man, it just tears me up," sighs Jamie McIntosh, executive director of International Justice Mission in Canada, a broad-based Christian agency based in Ontario, that rescues victims of violence, sexual exploitation, slavery and other forms of abuse and oppression around the world. An ordained minister, Jamie McIntosh challenges Christians to do more to eliminate slavery - "While I think churches are waking up to the issue, the reality is most people are simply unaware of modern slavery" he says. "As the church does wake up, we find we have incredible power and resources to bring to bear on behalf of the oppressed."
Other agencies have taken to buying back slaves from traders in order to release them. Christian Solidarity International, has bought the freedom of an estimated 80,000 slaves in the Sudan since 1995. While there's no hard proof of the adverse effects of the redemption of slaves, some activists condemn it, alleging it drives up the price of slaves and thus encourages the spread of slave raiding.
Kevin Bales, president of "Free the Slaves" and dubbed the world's foremost expert on contemporary slavery, believes redeeming slaves is not a good idea. "If we're talking about a criminal activity that involves stealing a person and forcing him or her into slavery, you only aid and abet that crime if you pay a slaveholder to get that slave back. It's a little bit like paying a burglar to get your television set back." Others say: "If we love our neighbour as ourselves "we do not leave slaves in bondage to be raped, beaten and otherwise terrorized when we have the means to free them and return.
All anti-slavery workers face the awkward reality of unreliable law enforcement, often because there is none in places where slavery thrives or, in the case of Sudan, the government actively supports slavery even though the practice is officially banned (the United Nations has even cited the existence of open slave markets in the country). Bales acknowledges that churches are involved in the campaign to end slavery, "but I wouldn't say adequately". Faith communities are just awakening to their role in the global anti-slavery movement.
Jamie McIntosh of the International Justice Mission of Canada doesn't pause when asked what motivates him and his organization - and what should drive others: "If we are to claim that we have the love of Christ in our hearts then we need to be fired up about going into the heart of darkness and helping bring light and love and rescue and hope for these people as if it were ourselves trapped in those situations."
Kevin Bales acknowledges that churches are involved in the campaign to end slavery "but I wouldn't say adequately. Faith communities are just awakening to their role in the global anti-slavery movement.
The new fight against slavery dates to the early 1990s. The break up of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, along with increasing globalisation, contributed to the number of people trafficked each year. In Europe and America, awareness grew as police exposed several major sex-trafficking rings.
Influential organizations came on board, addressing different aspects of modern slavery, including the following:
Disposable People: New Slavery in the Global Economy. Kevin Bales. University of California Press; 2 edition (Feb 3 2005). ISBN-10: 0520243846. ISBN-13: 978-0520243842.
A History of the Slave Trade in Canada Originally published in Faith Today, Janaury/February 2007
"Slavery Lives Again" - "Evangelicals once led the campaign to abolish slavery - it's time to do it again" by Ron Csillag