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End
Slavery
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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 Silverstein
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Willingly
no one chooses the yoke of slavery.
-- Aeschylus
 |
*
“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
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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
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*
The
more freedom we enjoy, the greater the responsibility
we bear, toward others as well as ourselves.
--
Oscar
Arias Sanchez
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*
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
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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
|
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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
|
|
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*
“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
|
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*
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
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
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*
"Peace
can only last where human rights are respected,
where the people are fed, and where individuals
and nations are free."
-- 14th
Dalai Lama
*
Brute
force, no matter how strongly applied, can never
subdue the basic human desire for freedom.
-- Dalai
Lama
*
Human
Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the
right to pursue happiness and live in peace
and freedom.
-- 14th
Dalai Lama
|
 |
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"In
the same way that we today think that the slave
trade and colonial exploitation were inhuman
and inconceivably bestial ways of acquiring
riches, there is no doubt that coming generations
will think that our form of world trade and
distribution of the world's benefits were just
as inconceivable and inhuman."
-- Erik
Dammann
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Americans
are so enamored of equality that they would rather
be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.... The
subjection of individuals will increase amongst democratic
nations, not only in the same proportion as their
equality, but in the same proportion as their ignorance.
-- Alexis de Tocqueville
*
“I
didn't know I was a slave until I found out
I couldn't do the things I wanted”
-- Frederick
Douglass
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There
is in this world no such force as the force of
a person determined to rise. The human soul cannot
be permanently chained.
-- W.
E. B. DuBois
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*
"How
many years can some people exist
before
they're allowed to be free..."
-- Bob
Dylan
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History
has a long-range perspective. It ultimately passes stern
judgment on tyrants and vindicates those who fought,
suffered, were imprisoned, and died for human freedom,
against political oppression and economic slavery.
-- Elizabeth Gurley Flynn
 |
It
seems almost incredible that the advocates of
liberty should conceive of the idea of selling
a fellow creature to slavery.
-- James
Forten
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*
Enslave
the liberty of but one human being and the liberties
of the world are put in peril"
-- William
Lloyd Garrison
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Our
mission has been the protection of the wage-worker,
now; to increase his wages; to cut hours off the
long workday, which was killing him; to improve
the safety and the sanitary conditions of the
workshop; to free him from the tyrannies, petty
or otherwise, which served to make his existence
a slavery.
-- Samuel
Gompers
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*
It
doesn't take a genius to pump up the GNP [of a
developing country] by burning down rainforests,
using slave labor and social repression to keep
things in place.
-- Hazel
Henderson
|
We
say that slavery has vanished from European civilization,
but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now
it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.
-- Victor Hugo
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*
Yes,
a new day is here. Across America -- throughout
the entire world -- the forces of emancipation
are at work. We hear freedom's rising chorus:
“Let me live my own life. Let me live in peace.
Let me be free," say the people.
-- Hubert
Humphrey
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No
slavery can be abolished without a double emancipation,
and the master will benefit by freedom more than the
freed-man.
-- Thomas Henry Huxley
In
most ages many countries have had part of their inhabitants
in a state of slavery; yet it may be doubted whether
slavery can ever be supposed the natural condition of
man. It is impossible not to conceive that men in their
original state were equal; and very difficult to imagine
how one would be subjected to another but by violent
compulsion. An individual may, indeed, forfeit his liberty
by a crime; but he cannot by that crime forfeit the
liberty of his children.
-- Samuel Johnson
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*
I
know that there are no limits to which the powers
of privilege will not go to keep the workers
in slavery
-- Mother
Jones
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*
"I
won't give up until the exploitation of all
children has ended and all children have their
rights."
-- Craig
Kielburger
*
"It's
easier to be ignorant and say I don't know
about the problem. But once you know, once
you've seen it in their eyes, then you have
a responsibility to do something. There is
strength in numbers, and if we all work together
as a team, we can be unstoppable."
-- Craig
Kielburger
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*
As
long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never
be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense
of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon
against the long night of physical slavery.
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr
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I
have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and
live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these
truths to be self-evident: that all men are created
equal." I have a dream that one day on the red hills
of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of
former slaveowners will be able to sit down together
at a table of brotherhood. I have a dream that one day
even the state of Mississippi, a desert state, sweltering
with the heat of injustice and oppression, will be transformed
into an oasis of freedom and justice. I have a dream
that my four children will one day live in a nation
where they will not be judged by the color of their
skin but by the content of their character. I have a
dream today.
--
Martin
Luther King, Jr
The
present age handed over the workers, each alone and
defenseless, to the unbridled greed of competitors...
so that a very few and exceedingly rich men have laid
a yoke of almost slavery on the unnumbered masses of
non-owning workers.
-- Pope Leo XIII
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Whenever
I hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a
strong impulse to see it tried on him personally.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
We
must free the slaves or be ourselves subdued.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
*
Those
who deny freedom to others deserve it not for
themselves.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
If
slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong.
-- Abraham
Lincoln
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*
Massive
poverty and obscene inequality are such terrible
scourges of our times -- times in which the
world boasts breathtaking advances in science,
technology, industry and wealth accumulation
-- that they have to rank alongside slavery
and apartheid as social evils.
-- Nelson
Mandela
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By
a divine paradox, wherever there is one slave there
are two. So in the wonderful reciprocities of
being, we can never reach the higher levels until
all our fellows ascend with us.
-- Edwin Markham
 |
*
“Emancipate
yourselves
from mental slavery.
None but ourselves
can free our minds.
Won't you help to sing
The songs of freedom?”
-- Bob
Marley
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The
augmentation of slaves weakens the states; and
such a trade is diabolical in itself, and disgraceful
to mankind.
-- George
Mason
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Slavery
as an institution that degraded man to a thing has
never died out. In some periods of history it has
flourished: many civilizations have climbed to power
and glory on the backs of slaves. In other times slaves
have dwindled in number and economic importance. But
never has slavery disappeared.
-- Milton Meltzer
 |
*
"The
saddest sight these days is the image of hundreds
of thousands of children kidnapped and lured
into being child soldiers from the age of eight.
"
-- Sir
Roger Moore
|
*
Compelled
to become instruments of war, to kill and
be killed, child soldiers are forced to give
violent expression to the hatreds of adults
-- Olara
Otunnu
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Look
back, to slavery, to suffrage, to integration and
one thing is clear. Fashions in bigotry come and go.
The right thing lasts.
-- Anna Quindlen
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*
"The
artist must elect to fight for Freedom or for
Slavery.
-- Paul
Robeson
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The
slave is doomed to worship time and fate and
death, because they are greater than anything
he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts
are of things which they devour.
-- Bertrand
Russell
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Once
slavery in America was not seen as radical. It became,
instead, a revolutionary idea that slaves should be
freed. When we have lived under a pernicious power
long enough, no matter how oppressive, we grow so
accustomed to the yoke that its removal seems frightening,
even wrong.
-- Gerry L. Spence
When
we acknowledge the kingdom of the self, we will no
longer accept slavery either for ourselves or for
others, no matter how it is disguised.
-- Gerry L. Spence
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*
...it
is impossible to make anything beautiful or
desirable in the best regulated administration
of slavery.
-- Harriet
Beecher Stowe
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Whoever
visits some estates there, and witnesses the good-humored
indulgence of some masters and mistresses, and the
affectionate loyalty of some slaves, might be tempted
to dream the oft-fabled poetic legend of a patriarchal
institution, and all that; but over and above the
scene there broods a portentous shadow — the shadow
of law. So long as the law considers all these human
beings, with beating hearts and living affections,
only as so many things belonging to a master — so
long as the failure, or misfortune, or imprudence,
or death of the kindest owner, may cause them any
day to exchange a life of kind protection and indulgence
for one of hopeless misery and toil — so long it is
impossible to make anything beautiful or desirable
in the best regulated administration of slavery.
-- Harriet
Beecher Stowe
When
I have been travelling up and down on our boats, or
about on my collecting tours, and reflected that every
brutal, disgusting, mean, low-lived fellow I met,
was allowed by our laws to become absolute despot
of as many men, women and children, as he could cheat,
steal, or gamble money enough to buy,--when I have
seen such men in actual ownership of helpless children,
of young girls and women,--I have been ready to curse
my country, to curse the human race!
-- Harriet
Beecher Stowe
“For
in reason, all government without the consent of the
governed is the very definition of slavery.”
-- Jonathan Swift
Democracy
and capitalism have very different beliefs about the
proper distribution of power. One believes in a completely
equal distribution of political power, 'one man, one
vote', while the other believes that it is the duty
of the economically fit to drive the unfit out of
business and into economic extinction. 'Survival of
the fittest' and inequalities in purchasing power
is what capitalist efficiency is all about. Individuals
and firms become efficient to be rich. To put it in
its starkest form, capitalism is perfectly compatible
with slavery. The American South had such a system
for more than two centuries. Democracy is not comparable
with slavery.
-- Lester Thurow
 |
*
The
essence of all slavery consists in taking
the product of another's labor by force. It
is immaterial whether this force be founded
upon ownership of the slave or ownership of
the money that he must get to live.
-- Leo
Tolstoy
"Money
is a new form of slavery, and distinguishable
from the old simply by the fact that it is
impersonal - that there is no human relation
between master and slave”
-- Leo
Tolstoy
|
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*
“I
freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed
a thousand more if only they knew they were
slaves.”
-- Harriet
Tubman
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Not
only do I pray for it, on the score of human dignity,
but I can clearly forsee that nothing but the rooting
out of slavery can perpetuate the existence of our
union, by consolidating it in a common bond of principle.
-- George Washington
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*
...nothing
on earth can stop man from feeling himself born
for liberty. Never, whatever may happen, can
he accept servitude; for he is a thinking creature.
-- Simone
Weil
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In
war the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace
the rich make slaves of the poor. We must work to
live, and they give us such mean wages that we die.
We toil for them all day long, and they heap up gold
in their coffers, and our children fade away before
their time, and the faces of those we love become
hard and evil. We tread out the grapes, and another
drinks the wine. We sow the corn, and our own board
is empty. We have chains, though no eyes behold them;
and are slaves, though men call us free.
-- Oscar Wilde
Human
slavery is wrong, insecure, and demoralizing. On mechanical
slavery, on the slavery of the machine, the future
of the world depends.
-- Oscar Wilde
Freedom
Day
- February 1
End
Slavery Day
- December 2
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