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It is the bicentennial of the abolition of slavery in
the British Parliament and I was a speaker at a conference in Hull
recently and will share you my speech about modern forms of slavery:
I thank you for being here today
to listen to my account of the situation of modern-slavery as I have
seen and encountered it in the past 36 years as a missionary in
South East Asia. This is not a pleasant subject, it is heart
wrenching, troubling, and above all a challenging issue for us who
are free and better off than almost two thirds of humanity on the
planet today.
These are the people who are
crying out for freedom from the chains of modern slavery today—the
children, women and men enslaved by poverty and the greed of their
exploiters in the most dehumanizing kind of work.
They are crushed too by a global
system of injustice and abuse. The fact that we are here today
recalling the commitment and dedication of William Wilberforce and
Thomas Clarkson to successfully have laws passed to abolish slavery
is evidence that their Christian Faith and unshakeable belief in the
dignity of the human person, is still alive and well today.
Your presence is also a tribute
to the people of Hull and Yorkshire who had the wisdom and trust in
William to elect him to parliament when only 21 years old and
reelect him in 1784. It’s a signal that we today, need to trust,
encourage, and inspire young people in their idealism. We need to be
prophetic, outspoken and active in defending and promoting human
rights and the dignity of the human person. It teaches us that
political action motivated by Gospel values can have a global impact
and benefit the lives of millions. This is what William Wilberforce
achieved with the help of his supporters and friends. It only takes
one to say no to injustice for many to say yes to freedom. It is
this no doubt that brings all of us here together today.
What inspired and motivated
people like William Wilberforce and what sustains those working for
justice and truth and decency is a love that is unselfish,
compassionate, challenging and liberating. This is what can help
free all those captives of the modern forms of slavery.
We live in a materialistic world
driven by consumerism, a passion for profit where human value is
measured by how much money one has and the poor are excluded and
rejected as worthless, unless they can be exploited and enslaved.
In one sense slavery today is the
same as it always was; it is the dominance of the powerful over the
weak, the rich over the poor, human beings are still being reduced
to a commodity, deprived of freedom, working for nothing, exploited
for profit, owned like an animal, forced to grovel. And worst of all
it is the slavery of children in the organized sex industry. That
form of slavery is now a billion dollar business. What is most
repulsive of all is that it is tolerated and boasted, encouraged and
approved by local governments in parts of the developing world who
have vested interests.
Responsible too are the Internet
service providers (ISPs) and companies that refuse to filter and
block access to child pornography web sites when they could easily
do so. British Telecom has shown the way. Government could legislate
to make it mandatory for access to child pornography to be blocked
to protect children and minors accessing it and save those children
being enslaved and abused in order to make the pornography.
In the worst forms of sexual
exploitation child sex slaves are chained to beds, abused daily,
threatened and tortured, punched and punished, beaten and bruised,
and made a plaything for the powerful, a toy for the depraved.
This kind of sex slavery is
organized, financed by local and foreign investors, many of them
have criminal backgrounds in their own countries and are protected
by politicians, prosecutors and judges. Some of these officials are
implicated and compromised by illicit relationships with minors and
open to blackmail by the child and women traffickers and exploiters.
They can prosper with impunity. (End my speech.)
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