Wilberforce Institute Director, Professor Simon Green delves into the significance of Anti-Slavery Week and opens the door to new conversations about slavery, in this blog.
So, it’s Anti-Slavery week. I don’t know about all of you, but I find myself increasingly confused by the sheer volume of commemorative and campaigning days, weeks and months. Maybe I’m just getting old, but it’s hard to keep up with all the important causes that we are expected to remember and engage with. At my University it is quite common to be routinely asked ‘have you got anything going on for ‘this’ or ‘that’ cause on ‘this’ or ‘that’ day?’ After a while the temptation is to become a bit jaded about the treadmill of deserving causes and the associated institutional virtue-signaling.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not criticising the intention behind these types of days – or the desire to engage with them. At least not until we must buy and send greeting cards for them all! I think it is important to meet, remember, and raise awareness on these days because without them, the danger is we don’t take the time to reflect and share the struggles, sacrifices and injustices that we fought against – and that still persist.
When I search online, I learn that Anti-Slavery Day was introduced in the UK by an Act of Parliament in 2010 and is designed to coincide with Anti-Trafficking Day in the European Union. And there is a separate United Nations International Day for the Abolition of Slavery which takes place on December 2nd each year. Each of these seems to be focused on what is called ‘modern slavery’ in the UK.
Modern slavery (alongside historical slavery) is what the Wilberforce Institute is interested in. It is what we educate and research about. Modern slavery includes a wide range of behaviours including things like sexual exploitation, forced labour, criminal exploitation, child soldiers, debt bondage and domestic servitude.
Of course, most of these types of exploitation were common practice in historical slavery – though the context is arguably very different. As a research institute, we try to explore where the points of similarity and difference exist between historical and modern forms of slavery. For example, is the word ‘slavery’ even appropriate in the modern context? How does our research help improve the police response to trafficking and exploitation? How does historical slavery continue to affect people’s lives today? Fundamentally, how can we learn from the atrocities of the past and what do we do to tackle the abuses of the present?
What we find is that there are many more questions like these and lots of opinions about how to answer them. As researchers, we are interested in all these different points of view.
So, what does Anti-Slavery week mean to a bunch of researchers who spend their days thinking about this topic? It means we want to hear what you think. Of course, we want to tell you what we’re doing (see HERE for our projects, and HERE for our events) but more importantly we want to hear from you.
If you’ve had experience of exploitation, if you’re a campaigner, police officer, a first responder or another researcher with your own questions, we’d love to hear your point of view. And through this learn from each other and improve how we tackle the injustices of past and present exploitation and enslavement.
So, somewhat paradoxically, I’d like to end with a hopeful comment. Anti-Slavery week (and all its associated variants) is a chance to reach out and talk to each other. To listen and learn. To connect as human beings who have a shared interest in promoting human dignity and respect for each other. If you agree with this – and especially if you don’t – get in touch and maybe you’d like to write the next blog for the Wilberforce Institute….