The U.S. formally classifies Mauritania as a Tier 3 human trafficking country, the worst ranking, meaning it neither fully complies with minimum standards or makes significant efforts to do so. This bars Mauritania from certain kinds of U.S. financial assistance.
Despite widespread public perception of slavery’s eradication, this brutal profit-driven institution has staged a major comeback tailored to capital economies and business. An estimated 40 million people worldwide, including in developed countries, make up the prime commodity in the $150-billion modern slavery industry, according to the World Economic Forum.
This led to the End Modern Slavery initiative, adopted in the U.S. in December 2016, and now the Global Fund to End Modern Slavery (GFEMS), modeled after the Global Fund to Fight Aids, TB, and Malaria. With initial funding from the U.S. and the United Kingdom announced at the 48th World Economic Forum in Davos-Klosters, Switzerland, it targets capitalization of $1.5 billion.
For those who see slavery as history, Cook County Circuit Court Judge Anthony Simpkins, part of the rebuffed Mauritania fact-finding mission, bore witness to slavery’s persistent and harrowing reality. After the group’s diversion to bordering Dakar, Senegal, they met with escaped, activist Mauritanian slaves.
“We sat and talked, face to face, with real heroes—people who had been jailed, who had been tortured, whose friends and families had died. These are people who are fighting the fight everyday in a very, very real way. They’re the reason that we do what we do.”
Simpkins’ summed up that human reason for The Abolition Institute in clear and present terms. “Slavery is slavery. It’s human trafficking. It’s exploitation of women. It’s forced labor. It is violence to human dignity.”
The Institute’s urgent work moved Donna Demir, Zakat Foundation health advisor, and a poet, to take up her pen. She recited her piece near the close of the event.
“In my heart, this was something I needed to share with all of you.” She started. Her first line seemed a coda to the event.
“There are no rights for being the other’s other.”