enslaved

I've just finished reading the most fascinating, moving and depressing book, which sheds a new light on all the celebrations this year for the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade.
Slave, by Mende Nazer tells the story of the author's capture - aged 12, when the Arab militia raided her southern Sudanese village - and passage into slavery.
She was bought and for more than a decade she worked for Arab families, first in Khartoum and then London, doing all the housework, cooking and looking after the children from the moment she got up in the morning, to the minute she went to bed.
She was paid nothing, given no days off and received regular beatings by her "masters" - people who refused to even call her by her name.
In the London house, she was actually working for a diplomat based at the Sudanese embassy.
When Nazer finally managed to escape, the Home Office refused her asylum application on the grounds that "slavery is not persecution - persecution is another way of saying serious suffering."
They also claimed that despite the fact Nazer had written a book exposing the fact that Sudanese army troops had a hand in the trade (she was taken to a barracks before being sold to a slave trader), it was safe for her to return home.
A protest ensued and the decision was overturned in 2002, just a few months after it had been refused. In the original letter the department had even got her country wrong - referring to her as Somalian. There's an interesting audio interview with her here.
Nazer - now aged about 28 - is now based in London and training to be a nurse. Little appears to have happened to the former employers who abused her.
This is just one of the many ways that slavery still persists today, despite all the ceremony surrounding this year's bicentenary.
While I do understand why some would like an apology from the British government for the country's role in this, I can't help thinking they could be slightly missing the point.
While we shouldn't of course forget what awful things happened in those days and the legacy it has left, what good will empty words do - especially while slavery is still going on.
Wouldn't actions be better than words? Maybe these activists who are getting so het up about the issue should turn their attention to what's happening to children and adults like Nazer, and instead put pressure on the authorities to do something for the here and now.