UNITED KINGDOM: English city of Hull marks bicentenary of slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce

Record ID: 572792

  • Title: UNITED KINGDOM: English city of Hull marks bicentenary of slave trade abolitionist William Wilberforce
  • Date: 22nd March 2007
  • Summary: (W3) HULL, ENGLAND, UNITED KINGDOM (MARCH 20, 2007) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF THE WILBERFORCE INSTITUTE SIGN READING "WILBERFORCE INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDY OF SLAVERY AND EMANCIPATION"
  • Embargoed: 6th April 2007 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: United Kingdom
  • Country: United Kingdom
  • Topics: History
  • Reuters ID: LVA6USOJJAD95NG1IJVPS75TOA4R
  • Story Text: Britain is commemorating the 200th anniversary of its abolition of the slave trade on Sunday (March 25), with one man above all the centre of attention.
    William Wilberforce, a member of parliament, made the issue a talking point in late 18th-century Britain. He waged a passionate campaign that ultimately led to the abolition of the slave trade throughout the British empire. With Wilberforce's endless campaigning, Parliament finally passed the first anti-slavery bill in 1807.
    Wilberforce's legacy lives on in his home city of Hull in northeast England, whose council has declared 2007 "the year of Wilberforce", with events organised throughout the year to honour the work and ideology of the city's famous son.
    Wilberforce was born in Hull in 1759 to a prosperous trading family. At the age of 21, he became the youngest member of the House of Commons, working closely together with school friend William Pitt, Britain's youngest ever prime minister.
    Torn between the call of religion and politics, Wilberforce was a man of many humanitarian interests. Besides being horrified by the plight of slaves, he also campaigned against animal cruelty and was a founding member of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA). As Wilberforce became a devout Christian, he wrestled with his conscience and planned to give up his political career for a higher calling. However, he was persuaded by other abolitionists that he could promote his humanitarian interests in Parliament, which Wilberforce took to heart.
    Two hundred years on, he is still a local celebrity in his home town. With banners promoting his legacy lining the city's streets, Hull is preparing for the bicentenary celebrations on Sunday. Wilberforce's birthplace, which has housed the world's first anti-slavery museum since 1906, has gone through a renovation and will host the festivities on Sunday.
    Jayne Tyler, lead officer for the Wilberforce House redevelopment project, said the anti-slavery pioneer was much admired by residents and they were united in celebrating the bicentenary
    "He is definitely looked up to by young people in the city and people who, people know about him and they know about the museum and they've always been very proud that he came from Hull. And particularly in the bicentenary year they are very proud that people are commemorating 200 years since the acts that he pushed through Parliament has been abolished so I think it is at the forefront of everybody's minds," she told Reuters.
    Coinciding with the celebrations is a new film about the life of Wilberforce, "Amazing Grace", by acclaimed British director Michael Apted with Welsh actor Ioan Gruffudd as Wilberforce.
    Speaking to Reuters at the film's British premiere on Monday (March 19), Apted said he wanted to make a film that would show that politicians, for all the bad press they get, can change things for the better. He stressed the importance of educating audiences about the history of slavery and its relevance today.
    "Slavery is always with us," he said.
    "Wilberforce and Pitt and his group managed to start the process that extinguished it in the United States but, I mean, there are more slaves now than then and every Western European country has a sex industry and those people are in slavery so slavery is always with us and you don't want to look at this film and think that slavery is finished, they got rid of slavery. Slavery is still there and I'd like people to think about that as much as what Wilberforce did."
    According to anti-slavery campaigners, trafficking in humans is still thriving in Britain, two centuries after the abolition of the slave trade.
    Campaigners, including Amnesty International, UNICEF and Anti-Slavery International, say Britain is home to thousands of men, women and children who have been tricked, coerced or intimidated into prostitution or forced labour. Many are lured to the country with the promise of a job, some sold even by their lovers, family or friends. Others are trapped in inhuman conditions working for little or no pay in hotels and restaurants, on farms or in private homes.
    The government -- once again trying to halt the trade -- estimates at least 4,000 women and children were in Britain in 2003 as a result of trafficking for sexual exploitation. Rights activists say many more are in all forms of forced labour.
    They are victims of what is now the third largest illicit trade in the world after narcotics and weapons, with an estimated annual value of 32 billion U.S. dollars. Today's victims are no longer overwhelmingly African. At the Poppy Project, a London safe house scheme for women forced into sex work, the top four source countries are Lithuania, Albania, Nigeria and Thailand.
    At a global level, a conservative estimate puts the figure of modern slaves at 27 million. However, Professor Michael Turner from the Wilberforce Institute for the study of Slavery and Emancipation (WISE) said the number was likely to be much higher.
    "If you actually count the number of people that are under that kind of servitude that we might define as slavery, I'm sure it would come to many many more million than 27 million. And people equally wouldn't believe you. If they don't think it's a serious problem with a low number, if you really do measure it properly, they won't believe you because it is an exaggerated number. I think 27 million maybe is a number in between, that sounds reasonable and at least will draw people's attention to it without it sounding too exaggerated or too trivial," Turner told Reuters.
    Growing official awareness of the problem has led to a number of initiatives in the past year.
    Prime Minister Tony Blair said in January Britain would sign the Council of Europe convention on human trafficking, stating in a speech last week that there were still modern examples of slavery that "we need to act against".
    In March 2006, the government tightened legislation on gangmasters after 23 Chinese labourers drowned while collecting shellfish in a northwest England estuary in 2004.
    The UK Human Trafficking Centre, a police-led body dedicated to understanding and tackling the issue, was set up in October last year. A nationwide police blitz on brothels and massage parlours last year uncovered 84 people trafficked into the sex trade, including 12 children.
    What would Wilberforce himself think about the situation today?
    Wilberforce's descendants believe he would not be impressed.
    "I think he would still think there was unfinished business and I think he would be very right," said the great-great-great-grandson of the abolitionist, also named William Wilberforce.
    "He'd probably be quite sad, I would think, if he were alive today, to see the fact that over 27 million people are still enslaved around the world and some on our doorstep, you know, the fact that this is happening to people around us. In a different way, of course, to 200 years ago but nonetheless, in slavery-like conditions," said Rachel Wilberforce.
    William Wilberforce died on July 29, 1833. He is buried in Westminster Abbey.
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