According to a news agency report from Paris, as France observed the first national day to commemorate the end of this dark chapter of history more than 150 years ago, the occasion was spoiled by fresh questions over the country's colonial legacy.
The day almost synchronised with the outrageous revelation by an International Labour Organisation report, pointing out that over 12 million people in the world are still caught in a modern version of slavery.
The report also had it that marking the adoption of a 2001 law, that recognised slave trade as a crime against humanity, President Jacques Chirac, who himself announced holding the memorial day in January, unveiled an exhibition in a Paris park, and museums were to run special shows and children, across the country were to discuss slavery at school.
In a speech to mark the day, which was also being celebrated in France's overseas territories, and former colonies, he said, "Let's look our past in the face, it's one of the keys to our national cohesion...this first commemoration isn't the end, it's a beginning..."
Understandably, as such, solemnity of the occasion must have been accompanied by a sense of agony caused to the people wherever in the world, slavery still survives in one form or the other! The ILO is reported to have estimated that 12.3 million people were subject to forced labour in many countries, among them Pakistan included. Evidently, taking a more serious view of the unwholesome trend's likely menace to the West, the ILO noted that globalisation was helping fuel forced labour, especially in Europe.
Again, recalling that slavery was outlawed by an international convention, in 1926, and that, technically, it should not be existing any more, since the right of ownership over another human being cannot be invoked anymore, the ILO report warned of globalisation helping create other forms of coerced labour, partly due to human trafficking networks, smuggling migrants into rich countries. While prostitution accounted for an estimated two-thirds of the problem in Europe, forced labour has been found to be in vogue in sectors of the economy like agriculture, or hotels and restaurants.
Moreover, the International Organisation for Migration believes that 700,000 to two million people pass through trafficking networks every year. A grim fact for the free world is that forced slavery has been found, to be prevalent in Asia, where some 9.5 million people are believed to be engaged in forced labour, their bulk comprising peasants in India and Pakistan, in bonded labour, and condemned to live in perpetual misery.
They are forced to surrender half of their produce to their landowners, while their children are, often, obliged to work to clear old family debts. Needless to point out, these ghastly revelations should serve a serious reminder of a long standing torturous situation in Pakistan, which may develop into a threat to the status quo the government and the civil society are keen to maintain at any cost.
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