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Human Rights

My Lords, I thank the noble Earl for his intervention. I am very well aware of that fact, as I would have gone on to say, but I thank him for making that point. The passing of the Act will be commemorated throughout this country and internationally this year. A wide range of organisations is working on the political and social legacy of the slave trade while highlighting the work of prominent abolitionists such as Olaudah Equiano, Ignatius Sancho, Hannah More and William Wilberforce, and the wealth generated through the slave trade in places such as Bristol, Liverpool, Birmingham, Lancaster and London. There will be a significant exhibition here in Westminster Hall indicating the role of Parliament in both sustaining and abolishing that abominable traffic. This afternoon, I want to raise the issue of public consciousness regarding human rights culture but, first, I want to say just a little about the role of the arts in human rights debates. I should here declare an interest as chair of the advisory group on the parliamentary exhibition and as co-curator, along with Dr Nima Poovaya Smith, of an Arts Council-funded programme of artistic commissions and events to commemorate the bicentenary, ““Freedom and Culture””. The project aims to demonstrate the continuing role that the arts play in the emancipation of the human spirit—a theme that occurs throughout history, but particularly in relation to African diaspora encounters with Europeans. Historically, artists, writers and scholars have played a key role in shaping, influencing and informing events relating to physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual freedoms. It is therefore crucial that the arts sector makes a considered and high-profile contribution to the commemorations across the UK this year and that public funding continues to support art that helps to heal the human spirit, especially of the most vulnerable groups in society, to deepen understanding, to articulate complex ideas in creative ways and to expose tensions between competing rights and sensitivities. Full participation by artists and arts organisations will be important as a means of demonstrating the continuity of the engagement of artistic practice with struggles for liberation and human rights across time and place. It is worth reflecting on the wider meanings of the bicentenary in the context of today’s debate on human rights and fundamental freedoms in the UK today. We in this House and in the other place are all too aware of the modern versions of slavery that still exist, despite the fact that it is banned in most of the countries where it is practised and despite the fact that there are several declarations, conventions and directives against such practices. The bare facts of the extent of the misery caused by trafficking in human exploitation—women, children and men being forced to work, in debt for life, subject to threats and torture—have been laid before your Lordships’ House on various occasions by many noble Lords with a deep commitment to ending those forms of exploitation. Within the parliamentary exhibition on the slave trade, Anti-Slavery International has curated a section revealing insight into the relevance of the history of enslavement to our current situation. More than180 years after its establishment, the organisation’s campaign against enforced labour and the denial of human freedom and rights is still necessary and vital in a contemporary globalised world. Internationally, Anti-Slavery International continues to press relevant agencies of the United Nations, such as the Commission on Human Rights and the Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, to make the issue of trafficking a priority and to ensure that the rights of the person trafficked are central to any anti-trafficking measure. Anti-Slavery International’s anti-trafficking programme comprises three elements: campaigning to end human trafficking; lobbying for victim protection; and research on measures that Governments take to protect the victims of trafficking, especially those who act as witnesses. This last point is vital. Assurances of protection against revenge are absolutely essential if the anti-trafficking measures are to be effective. The establishment and protection of the human rights of those who are victims of contemporary forms of the abominable traffic should surely be a priority in any anti-trafficking strategy. Those in Britain who denigrate the notion of human rights often do so from the vantage point of having benefited from centuries of struggle to achieve them. The mischievous misrepresentation of a few high-profile cases misleads the public and contributes to antipathy towards these issues. Frivolous uses of the term to refer, for example, to people who wish to smoke in restaurants or drive fuel-hungry vehicles distort the intentions and do a disservice to those powerless victims of human rights abuses who have no public voice. The freedoms and rights to which we refer are fundamental and should be unarguable. Although we should recognise that Britain has travelled some distance in respect of human rights since 1807, we need to be aware of the extent to which these gains have often had to be wrung from reluctant Governments, have frequently been contested and resisted by politicians from all parties, and have sometimes entailed defamation of people’s characters. Sadly, they have also sometimes resulted in the loss of life. We should also recognise that many members of the general public are still unaware—or, worse, uncaring—about the fact that, for example, switching on the lights has an impact on the freedoms and rights of the people of the Niger delta, or that the cheap shoes or rugs that we buy come at the expense of the physical and intellectual development of young children. And what about those men who think nothing of using a brutalised woman trafficked here for their gratification from Europe and Africa? Our own human rights achievements count for nothing if we perpetuate pain and misery for other, more vulnerable human beings elsewhere. One of the reasons why the trans-Atlantic slave trade could thrive for centuries was that the people of this country refused to regard enslaved Africans as fellow human beings. Surely we do not want to continue with that view today. Government action should be informed by the values that we claim to hold dear, in the tradition of those who have struggled and have sacrificed their lives for the principles of universal enfranchisement, children’s rights, women’s suffrage, anti-racism and anti-discrimination. It should not be shaped by the political agendas of the tabloid press. We are on the threshold of launching a new body that recognises the importance of the need for embedding in Britain a human rights culture that takes these issues seriously. In October this year, the newly formed Commission for Equality and Human Rights will come into being. In a briefing sent out on this debate, the Disability Rights Commission, one of the organisations that will be subsumed into the new body, states that the, "““CEHR will have a strong set of tools to strengthen individual rights, shift institutional behaviour and transform public attitudes””." I sincerely hope that that statement is correct. I also hope that the Minister will be able to say something about the contribution that the new commission will make to public education and understanding of these issues, particularly the real meaning of a human rights culture. With the right powers and resources, the establishment of the CEHR could mark a new era in the development of a progressive rights and equalities agenda for all citizens of this country. It could also develop a deeper sense of connection to struggles for freedom and rights across the globe.