Slavery - down but not yet out

 

William Wilberforce (1759-1833) was successful in his campaign to abolish the slave trade within the British Empire in 1807, and slavery itself in 1833, but, strange to tell, that did not make slavery illegal in Great Britain itself.

Slavery has finally been made illegal

The “Somerset Case” of 1772 effectively ended slavery in Britain in practical terms, because Lord Mansfield ruled in a civil case that a slave could not be bought or sold; in other words slavery was not a condition that could be subject to an enforceable contract. A slave could therefore seek his or her freedom in the courts and their owner would not have a defence in contract law.

However, that did not make the institution of slavery illegal because it had not been so declared by Parliament. That did not happen until 2010, with the Coroners and Justice Act (Section 71) that made it a criminal offence to hold a person in “slavery or servitude”. The punishment for so doing was set at up to 14 years’ imprisonment.

This may sound like a pure technicality, especially as there have long been laws in Great Britain covering such matters as false imprisonment and forced labour, but slave masters have been active in the black economy for many years and the lack of a specific law aimed at them had made it difficult to secure prosecutions. Fortunately, that is no longer the case.

It may be hard to believe, but there are still people around who seek to enslave others in this country. A recent case involved a traveller family who picked up “down and outs” and forced them to work for the family business for food and nothing else. Although the laws against false imprisonment and forced labour would have applied in this case, the specific recognition that this constituted slavery was important because it “called a spade a spade” and enabled the proper punishment to be applied.

Slavery is still a real problem in many places

Unfortunately, slavery is still endemic in many countries in the world. It has been estimated that there are more than 27 million slaves in the world today, which is more than were seized from Africa during the 400 years of the slave trade.

© John Welford