Thursday was celebrated as International Antislavery Day. This was declared by a private bill in the UK’s parliament. We take time out to raise awareness on this global injustice as we remember those trapped in modern day slavery.

Marcus Garvey says and Bob Marley sings we must emancipated ourselves from mental slavery. We must also emancipate ourselves from other forms of slavery and seek to emancipate others. These days there are varied kinds of slavery. Slavery is defined as forced labour and forced marriages. Both still exist today.

The 2021 global statistics say nearly one of every 150 people in the world is enslaved. This is frightening. Modern slavery occurs in almost every country. Although not defined in law, it covers practices such as forced labour, debt bondage, forced marriage, human trafficking and situations of exploitation where a person cannot leave because of threats, violence, coercion, deception, and/or abuse of power. Race ethnicity culture and religion doesn’t matter. It is interesting that commercial sexual exploitation accounts for 63 per cent of all forced labour,

Globally 1 in every 10 children work, and almost one in every eight person in forced labour is a child. More than half of these children in forced labour are in commercial sexual exploitation. This problem may seem far removed from us, but that is not so. According to Walk Free Foundation in a population of 2.96M persons 22,000 Jamaicans are enslaved today. We who are called to free ourselves and others do very little about this situation. Jesus’ efforts on earth was about helping the vulnerable and giving them back their dignity. We understand that he came to save us as individuals, but conveniently forget that he saves others too. While we seek to always be in a constant relationship with him, we should as Jesus did enable others to live this same relationship. Jesus was an enabler of freedom and we should be too.

One way we can ensure that persons do not fall victim to slavery is providing as a nation good quality education. This is something the church can do with our many schools. But we as individuals must participate. We can’t stand on the sidelines like we are watching the football match we have to be in the match whether as defenders, forwards or the goal keeper. Lines men do not win matches only players do. So friends and colleagues, we must join the fight by 1st spreading the word. It takes nothing off us. We can then do something more, with the help of others. May God give us the strength to be bold enough to do something to advance the work in tearing down modern slavery.