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Slavery

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Howells, on the eloquent and moving way in which she introduced this important debate. Her poignant, personal account of the legacy of slavery is a fitting reminder of the horrors of this barbaric practice and the far-reaching implications for all affected—individuals, their families and their communities at the time and over time. This year, while we commemorate the parliamentary achievements of William Wilberforce and his co-campaigners in abolishing the slave trade in the British Empire, we cannot celebrate the end of slavery. It is to our shame that an estimated 27 million people today are suffering some form of slavery. William Wilberforce would surely believe that his best legacy would be a commitment by us to complete his, as yet incomplete, mission to eradicate slavery from the face of the Earth. In my humanitarian and human rights work, which focuses on people who are largely cut off from major aid and advocacy organisations and are often trapped behind closed borders or in areas designated ““no go”” by oppressive regimes, I have met many hundreds of modern-day slaves. I have looked into their eyes and heard their first-hand accounts of the anguish inflicted on them, their families and communities. Personal stories often speak more eloquently than statistics, so perhaps I may offer some examples from my tragically large archive of encounters with people who have suffered contemporary slavery. Their voices speak for countless others who are still enslaved and whose voices cannot be heard here. My first example is from Sudan, where the National Islamic Front regime, an Islamist military junta, took power by force in 1989 and declared militaristic jihad against all who oppose it, including many Muslims as well as Christians and traditional believers. One of the weapons of that jihad was slavery. The Government mobilised the local tribesmen, the Murahaleen, and encouraged them to fight and keep the human bounty as slaves as their reward. Massive slave raids ensued, as reported by independent witnesses such as Gaspar Biro, UN special rapporteur for Sudan. I was in the region during many of those raids. This young mother is just one who describes the horror: ““My name is Abuk Kir. I am blind. Whenthe soldiers and the jihad warriors came, I could hear the horses galloping and the guns firing. I tried to run with my two children but I am blind so I fell and we were captured. They took us north but as I was blind I was no use so they abused me and left me behind. They took my children away as slaves. In Africa if you are blind, your children are your eyes, but I have lost them so I shall die””. We were able to help her to rescue her children. When I subsequently returned, we found a very happy Abuk Kir, smiling and laughing and saying: ““I am so happy my children are back, I could dance all night, except I am blind and cannot dance. But that does not matter. We are together as a family””. Under international pressure, the Government set up the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children to identify, rescue and return abducted women and children. But since the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement, the Government in Khartoum have abrogated responsibility for this urgent work and the Government of southern Sudan do not have the resources or the access to continue the rescue operations. I ask the Leader of the House whether Her Majesty’s Government will raise this issue with the Government in Khartoum, urging them to undertake the programme necessary to rescue the 35,000 or so women and children still enslaved and missing in Sudan today. My second example is from Burma, where the brutal Orwellian-named State Peace and Development Council regime uses different forms of slavery and servitude in its assaults against its own people, especially against the ethnic national groups such as the Karen, Karenni, Shan, Chin, Rohingya, Mon and Kachin peoples. These include systematic sexual slavery, forced labour in conditions so harsh that many perish, the use of human minesweepers, and the highest number of child soldiers in the world—70,000. During numerous visits to Shan, Karen, Karenni and Chin people, we have heard countless personal accounts of the brutality of forced labour, sexual abuse as a weapon of war, and the use of villagers as human minesweepers One lady described how her husband had repeatedly been forced to work as a porter until he was compelled to walk in front of SPDC soldiers as a human minesweeper and was blown up. Subsequently, she had to become a porter, carrying 30 kilograms of rice or ammunition for the soldiers from dawn to dusk. At night, she and other women porters were systematically sexually abused. Her son was also beaten and suffers permanent brain damage. There are many well documented reports providing massive evidence of the SPDC regime’s use of different forms of slavery, such as Catwalk to the Barracks by the Human Rights Foundation of Monland, or the abuse of children as child soldiers as documented in the report My Gun was as Tall as Me by Human Rights Watch. In northern Uganda, the notorious Lord’s Resistance Army has abducted at least 25,000 children, terrorising and brutalising them and forcing them to fight against the Ugandan army. Those children, whose names I deliberately do not mention, speak for countless others who have suffered atrocities beyond description. This is happening today. A young teenage boy said: ““During my training I had to undertake live shooting practice against other children. Many died but it was them or me. I became increasingly brutal and wild. I do not know how many people I have killed. I escaped to find both my parents had been killed and my three brothers abducted, feared dead. I and all the other children now need education””. A 15 year-old girl was abducted in 2002 and taken to Sudan. She was given to an LRA commander as his ““wife””. She had to fight and on five missions she had to take other children into captivity to southern Sudan, treating them as she had been treated. She said: ““I became wild, I didn’t care about killing and I possibly became worse than them. If I had met my mother and father I would have killed them. I acted like someone who is deranged. I don’t know how many people I have killed. I still have nightmares remembering some of their faces””. She has been told that her parents are dead. Of her seven siblings, four were abducted; she is the only one to return, as the others were killed in battle. Her desperate plea is for education. A teenage boy described how he had been forced to cut into pieces another boy who had tried to escape. When he himself took a similar risk and succeeded in escaping, he learnt that the LRA had killed his father in retaliation. He broke down in tears, describing his feelings of guilt for the death of his father. My last example concerns another boy—a young teenager—who described how, during his training, he had been forced to do three things: to rape a woman publicly; to kill another abductee with a hoe; and to throw another abductee down a well. The situation in northern Uganda is a little easier now that the LRA is engaging in peace talks, but many children are still missing. Those who have escaped need massive help to put their terrible past behind them and to try to build a future in desperate circumstances. The plight of these children highlights an aspect of modern slavery that deserves more attention: the rehabilitation of those who have escaped, often to find their families destroyed and their communities dislocated and devastated. Can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House say whether Her Majesty’s Government include policies to help to meet the needs of former slaves, such as children who have escaped from hellish experiences at the hands of the LRA? Their overriding plea is for education, but they cannot afford the fees and sink into despair. Can the Government do anything to try to help that situation in northern Uganda? Finally and briefly, I refer to an issue that has already been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Lester of Herne Hill: slavery and human trafficking in our own country. Yesterday, I had the privilege of being at Liverpool Hope University, where I have the honour to be chancellor. I watched the courageous and painfully poignant performance by a group of students of a powerful play highlighting the anguish of literally countless girls and women lured tothis country and subjected to appalling sexual exploitation. The students concluded with a plea for Her Majesty’s Government to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings. I should be most grateful to hear what the situation is with regard to that. They also highlighted the urgent need for more intervention to rescue those trapped in slavery in the United Kingdom and for more resources to provide safe havens to help and heal those who manage to escape in this country. Can the noble Baroness the Leader of the House say what steps the Government are taking to stop trafficking into the United Kingdom and to help those who have been victims of this barbaric aspect of modern slavery? In conclusion, it is my hope that we who enjoy freedom will do all that we can to ensure that this year of celebration of William Wilberforce’s valiant achievements will not be one of condemnation of our failure, in our day, to fulfil our responsibility to eradicate slavery from the face of the Earth.