Reactions to the problem
of the slave trade49
and 'migratory labour' means migrant or emigrant workers who do not have
the 'free choice' that they, as 'voluntary' recruits, are allegedly given. Words,
and history, can be treacherous.
In 1957, an International Labour Office Convention (No. 105) declared
the abolition of forced labour, one year after a United Nations Supplementary
Convention of 1956 had reaffirmed the abolition of slavery and the slave trade.
But the two issues constantly overlap, 'forced labour' being the substitute for
slavery in colonial countries, and the slave trade remaining the means of meet-
ing manpower requirements. The inquiry carried out by the United Nations
in 1963 on the specific question of slavery and the slave trade provides ample
proof of this.
Mohamed Awad's report shows that there were seventy-six replies,^77
and was based on the premise that where there is no slave trade, there is no
slavery.^78 He points out that the abolition of slavery has been adopted in
principle by most countries at different times, Saudi Arabia being the last
to have officially abolished it in 1962. The Mali report gives three distinct
periods in the history of slavery in Africa: (a) domestic slavery and prisoners
of war in feudal times ; (b) the slave trade with the establishment of trading
posts; (c) the replacement of the slave trade by a 'system of exploitation'.
' Consequently the abolition of slavery and of institutions or practices similar
to slavery only became a fact with national independence.' Finally, anti-
slavery societies in Saudi Arabia and India claim that there are still slaves in
these two countries,^79 although this is denied by their official representatives.
Clearly the word 'slavery' covers a variety of practices, in a variety of different
contexts: traditional slavery (which could be taken to include short-distance
trading); slavery in the Arab countries which is associated with the caravan
trade and which still exists; slavery linked with the Atlantic slave trade;
servitude for debt (as in the case of India, for example) ; and forced labour
in the colonial countries, a form of slavery imposed on individuals who are not
officially regarded as slaves. To say that the slave trade creates slavery empha-
sizes the common link in all these practices which successively or together
have shattered human freedoms and disrupted ethnic identities throughout
the course of history. The slave trade does not only help to preserve slavery
as an institution, to the mutual advantage of both dealer and slave-owner;
it imposes on the slave the added burden of exile, takes away any hope he
may have of ever returning home, and even has the effect of depriving him of
the will to regain his freedom. Africa has endured every form of slavery,
every form of servitude, her fate seemed to her to be unchanged when the slave
trade gave way to 'voluntary' migration.
At the international level, humanitarian efforts are still active. Slavery,
the slave trade, forced or compulsory labour have been officially banned:
Will they one day be a thing of the past? With decolonization, the conditions