Abolish Slave Trade

For over 400 years, more than 15 million men, women and children were the victims of the tragic slave trade, one of the darkest chapters in human history. The United Nations has designated August 23rd as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition – a day to think about the causes and consequences of racism, prejudice, racial discrimination and social injustice.

In the late nineteenth century, thousands of voluntary economic migrants left India and China, but many were promised good jobs and comfortable conditions and were lied to by unscrupulous employment agents. This employment organization became the front of many salve trade operatives. Wealthy but coward individuals hiding behind faces of million innocent ones was becoming the tradition of certain transatlantic countries.

The slave trade was a monstrous denial and trampling of human dignity. We are all diminished by the violation of human dignity. Promotion of human dignity is of paramount importance within and among states. It should also be a guiding principle for contemporary international institutions. In the words of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights.” History teaches us in its most tragic chapters that progress towards fostering peace and justice is rarely linear; it requires constant effort, as well as the application of expertise across borders and generations. Teaching and learning about the evil of the slave trade is a timeless imperative. It involves holding to account those who in our own times would justify this evil as “necessary.”

The essential lesson of the slave trade and its abolition is that we must not be morally blind or passive spectators in the face of evil.

--- Subhadip Mitra