Today’s Fight for Abolition
LOME, TOGO—Amazing Grace, the new film about William Wilberforce, concludes with what many consider his greatest life work—the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807. But a walk through a dusty open-air market in Lome, Togo today makes it painfully clear that the slave trade is flourishing two hundred years later.
Tiny boys—they would be considered “preschoolers” in the West—strain to push overloaded wooden carts through the crowded market. Their workday begins before dawn and continues until late in the evening when they are permitted to collapse beside their cart, in the dirt, for a few hours of rest.
Most of these young laborers can’t remember what rural village they came from or who their families are. All they know is that they will be beaten and killed if they attempt to escape those who took them from their homes and force them to do this brutal work.
Two boys hurry a heavy cart through the market in Lome, Togo.
Image from footage courtesy Pointy Shoe Productions
These child laborers are part of a global slave trade that is more complex and insidious than anything that William Wilberforce could have envisioned. Human bondage comes in so many variations today: nine-year-old girls sold into brothels, preteen boys forced to kill for rebel armies, children shackled twenty hours a day to rug-weaving machines. An estimated 27 million people are currently enslaved around the world, operating in a shadow economy valued at approximately US $12 billion.
How does one begin to think about taking on such overwhelming evil in 2007? Are there lessons to be gleaned from Wilberforce’s example? It’s tempting to regard him as one of history’s great men, but the danger of such a view is that it lets the rest of us off the hook. Since most of us can’t measure up to his extraordinary example, we convince ourselves that the best action is no action. We watch and wait for an obvious heir to the “Wilberforce legacy,” someone we can support with our checkbook and prayers.
The reality is that Wilberforce did not act alone. His bold actions were bolstered by a curious coalition of individuals of differing theologies and parties who came together on the issue of slavery. With prayers, perseverance, and a savvy strategy, this coalition—which came to be known as the Clapham group—labored to change how the British people perceived slavery. It took years, but they finally convinced the nation that slavery was not just an economic issue, it was also a moral issue that demanded redress.
Is a similar shift in the moral climate possible today in our globalized society? As a filmmaker who has spent the past year documenting those on the front lines of today’s abolitionist fight, I’m convinced it is indeed possible. The concept that it is wrong for any individual to own and control another remains as powerful a catalyst for change today as it was in Wilberforce’s time.
Piercing this darkness will require people of faith to put aside their theological and political differences—and their egos—to create a committed community. If we, like that curious coalition from Clapham, England, truly believe that every human is created in the image of a Creator, then we don’t have a choice. We must take action.
Senior Fellow Jody Hassett Sanchez has been filming in India, Pakistan, and Togo for her upcoming documentary film, SOLD: Contemporary Abolitionists and the Global Slave Trade, which will be broadcast and distributed later this year.
The feature film Amazing Grace opens in theaters in the U.S. on February 23. Bristol Bay Productions is also sponsoring the Amazing Change campaign to help people respond to modern-day slavery, in association with such groups as World Vision and International Justice Mission. Also see Wilberforce Central for other resources.
3 Responses (comments are closed) • Provocations, Good and Evil, Philanthropy, Thu 15 Feb 2007
