International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 2023: December 2 is International Day for the Abolition of Slavery every year. On this day in 1949, the General Assembly of the United Nations signed the Convention to Stop the Trafficking in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. To end modern forms of slavery like sexual abuse, human trafficking, the worst kinds of child labor, forced marriage, and recruiting kids to fight in wars is what today is all about.
It’s about making more people aware of the problem of modern slavery and stepping up efforts around the world to fight it. People, groups, and governments are asked to use today as a special chance to speak out against the horrible crimes of modern slavery that are still happening around the world. Interesting fact: International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is not the same as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition. The latter is a time to remember the horrible things that happened during the Transatlantic Slave Trade Era.
International Day For The End Of Slavery: A History
On International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, people work to end modern forms of slavery, such as trafficking, sexual abuse, child labor, forced marriage, and recruiting children to fight in wars. This day is celebrated on December 2, which is also the date that the U.N. Convention to Suppress the Traffic in Persons and the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others was signed by its member states in 1949. It is expected that governments, organizations, and people all over the world will use this day to condemn all forms of modern slavery that still exist in the world.
The International Labor Organization says that 40 million people around the world are victims of modern slavery. There isn’t a law that says what modern slavery is, but the word includes things like forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriage, human trafficking, and any other kind of exploitation where a victim is trapped because of threats of violence, coercion, deception, or abuse of power.
From the Stone Age to the present, slavery has been a part of many different countries, cultures, and faiths. Also, people who were slaves came from a lot of different racial and faith groups. In different times and places, slaves have had very different social, economic, and legal situations. In the 17th and 18th centuries, Africans were taken from their homes and sold into slavery in the American states. They were then used to make things like tobacco and cotton. While it’s hard to give exact numbers, some historians think that between 6 and 7 million people were brought to the New World as slaves in the 18th century alone. This meant that some of Africa’s strongest and healthiest men and women were taken away.
On September 22, 1862, Lincoln issued a preliminary emancipation proclamation. On January 1, 1863, he made it clear that all slaves in any U.S. state or certain part of a state would be free from that day on. The Emancipation Proclamation freed almost 3 million slaves in the rebel states. This took away most of the Confederacy’s workers and strongly influenced public opinion in other countries in favor of the Union. Some 186,000 Black soldiers joined the Union Army, and about 38,000 died. The Emancipation Proclamation did not officially end slavery in America until the 13th Amendment was passed after the Civil War finished in 1865.
Even though it is illegal everywhere in the world to be a slave, trafficking in people is still a worldwide problem. Twenty-five to forty million people were slaves as of 2013. Most of these people lived in Asia. From 1983 to 2005, Sudan had its Second Civil War. During that time, many people were sold into slavery. In the late 1990s, proof of child trafficking and slavery on cocoa farms in West Africa came to light.
The International Day for the Abolition of Slavery has been held every December 2 since 1995. Its purpose is to bring attention to the horrible practices of modern slavery and encourage people to work toward a better world. However, December 2 wasn’t officially named the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery until 2010, exactly ten years after a U.N. Working Group on Slavery suggested it as the date for the World Day for the Abolition of Slavery in 1985.
How To March For International Day for the Abolition of Slavery
Become a smart shopper.
To make a real difference on International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, you could promise to only buy things that are labeled as “fair trade.” This means that they were made ethically. Check the supply lines of the companies you buy from to make sure that the goods were not made with slave labor. You can also ask companies to stop using slave labor and forced labor in their supply lines.
Commit to honestly hiring workers.
For business owners, there’s no better way to support the day than to promise to make and serve your goods and services in an honest way. To get even more customers, you could also convince other business owners to buy from you and even mark your products as being made with fair labor.
Stop hurting other people.
Take a look at yourself; you might be putting someone or some people down in some way. It’s not too late to change if you realize you’re doing this. Reading about the past of slaves will help you understand how those who are mistreated feel, and you will not want to be that person.
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What You Need To Know About The Slave Trade And The End Of Slavery
Forty million people are slaves in this day and age.
The International Labour Organization says that more than 40 million people around the world are victims of modern slavery, which includes things like being made to work, being held in debt, being married against their will, and being trafficked.
People who are forced to work make $150 billion.
The International Labour Organization says that there are 21 million victims of forced labor around the world right now, making $150 billion a year in illegal gains in the private sector.
Four out of every five slaves are children.
About one in four people who see different kinds of modern slavery are children.
12 million Africans were taken as slaves.
Record keeping shows that between the 16th and 19th centuries, the Transatlantic Slave Trade brought about 12 million Africans as slaves across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas.
A lot of them were sent to South America.
During the Transatlantic Slave Trade, most Africans who were taken as slaves were sent to the Caribbean or Brazil.
What Is Important About International Day for the Abolition of Slavery?
It’s a chance to make things different.
The goal of International Day for the Abolition of Slavery is to make enough people aware of how bad modern slavery is and encourage them to work to end it. Today is a chance to make things different. The day gives us a chance to make a difference in the world by talking about it with others and getting them to promise to end it.
It shows what’s wrong with people.
The best way to get everyone to work together for a better and fairer future is to look at what we’re currently bad at. International Day for the Abolition of Slavery makes us aware of our mistakes when it comes to slavery and the beliefs and institutions that have supported it in the past. This makes us want to expect better. In the time of the slave trade, people went through a lot of pain and were treated badly while working for their masters. We are celebrating the end of slavery on International Day for the Abolition of Slavery.
It helps us recall our promise to serve humanity.
Yes, International Day for the Abolition of Slavery helps us remember how to help people who have been pushed into some form of modern slavery. It gives us a chance to bond with each other more deeply. If we remember that Abolition Day marks the end of slavery, we will be glad that we were not born during the slave trade. It would make us value our freedom more if we knew how hard it was for slaves during that time.
International Day For The Abolition Of Slavery Dates
Year | Date | Day |
---|---|---|
2023 | December 2 | Saturday |
2024 | December 2 | Monday |
2025 | December 2 | Tuesday |
2026 | December 2 | Wednesday |
2027 | December 2 | Thursday |