The international day against slavery was commemorated on Monday 23rd August. Amidst cries for reparations, the significance of this event was lost in political diatribe. Sylvio Michel and his cohorts dragged the agenda either into cheap squabbles with their government allies or the land-mined territory of financial compensation.

To mark that day, Anti-Slavery International, a human-rights group, issued a statement condemning the continued practice of human slavery. It pointed out that “the United Nations Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery estimated in 1999 that some 20 million people are held in bonded labour around the world”. This old and ugly practice has unfortunately never ended.

‘Bonded’ labour first took shape when the freed slaves of 1835 and later, the indentured labourers, had to toil the fields of colonial plantations. They had to work, very often, for seven days a week in exchange for an infinitesimal sum of money. Violence - physical, psychological and sexual - was routinely used as a threat to further enslave them.

Today, “‘bonded’ labour continues, on agricultural estates in South Asia; children are trafficked for profit in West Africa; and women are exported for domestic and sexual slavery in Europe,” according to Anti-Slavery International. There is no doubt that this system will be hard to eradicate.

People are driven into slavery in an attempt to escape poverty, discrimination and war. The human-rights organisation says that “they are promised fantastic opportunities such as well-paid jobs, education, or marriage. Many imagine that they will be able to send money home to help their families.” In return, Europe and North America implicitly depend on them for their share of cheap labour.

<B>The fight against slavery is not over</B>

Even Mauritius has seen its labour market accommodate foreign workers. According to the Central Statistics Office, they comprise approximately 25% of the workforce in the textile industry. Though the companies that employ them claim their pay to be on a par with local workers, recent strikes have raised questions about exploitative practices.

With this movement of people in search of better living conditions, human trafficking, globally, became a very lucrative business for unscrupulous individuals or groups. Migrant workers sometimes fall into the hands of criminal organisations, which take away their passports to prevent any escape. They are coerced into prostitution or hard labour for very little or no money. The United Nations estimates that up to 900 000 persons are trafficked annually, generating around US$ 7 billion.

Thus, it is preposterous to talk about compensation when slavery is still carried out on a daily basis. It might be the prerogative of Organisation Fraternelle/Les Verts to raise the issue but it should be kept in mind that the fight is not over. Furthermore, it is a fallacy to argue that financial remuneration can repair the damages caused by this debasing colonial experiment. Where slavery really hurt was in the psyche. Its victims have been psychologically scarred and no amount of cash will atone for this injustice. Sylvio Michel and friends should strive to answer Afro-American poet Gil Scott Heron’s question: “Who’ll pay reparations on my Soul?”