The world celebrates today, 23 August, the  International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the Transatlantic Slave Trade, in accordance with the UN General Assembly resolution of 17 December 2007, also the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, declared by UNESCO in 1994.

The Geneve Institute for Human Rights, reaffirms on the significance of this anniversary, and reminds the world that slavery is one of the  great plagues that afflicted mankind, and one of the major crimes that mankind practised against each other, and deprived one's freedom and human dignity by slavery, and rendering mankind as an owned object, exploit and forced to work for whole life for nothing.

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GIHR celebrates this international day that represents a spot of light in the darkness of slavery, and abuse of mankind to mankind, and reminds on the importance of UN efforts to raise awareness with this phenomena, that harm human dignity which God has honored and made human being his  successor in the earth to manage it with reason and logic, and to bring his humanity on earth, to become a place for coexistence, and  denounce the practices of arrogance and unjustly differentiation.

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This year anniversary gains additional importance, where it coincides with the 214th anniversary of Haiti independence, and the 24th anniversary of UNESCO project «The Slave Route Project», that aims to shed light on this ugly practice and to illustrate the richness of the cultural traditions that African peoples have contributed to arts, music, dance and culture and other aspects of life, in spite of the sufferings that these peoples have endured from slavery, exploitation and enslavement.

GIHR, emerging from its objectives and mission in defending and promoting human rights everywhere to deepen them in human mind and translate them into actions, considers this Day, as a great opportunity to remind the international community with the great sacrifices that the slaves had incurred, through its different forms in the past and at present, and the need to exert more efforts to eliminate this disgraceful phenomena, also to eliminate the current slavery-like practices.

GIHR would like to reiterate that it will continue its quest, as used to do, to break all barriers to reach to all slavery and enslavement spots, in all its explicit and implicit forms, and will continue to be the forum to denounce and expose all practices that harm human dignity, and the safe haven that shelters and protects the victims, to restore their rights, and dignity, at every place from which it receives complaint or call for help, in doing so, the Institute will mobilize all its human and material capacities to achieve this noble goal and to reach this maximum end.   

            

The history of slavery shall be employed to reaffirm the values of human freedom and dignity, and to build the culture of tolerance, respect and mutual understanding between the peoples, warn of the risks of racism, and to combat slavery in all forms that come in different modern forms in this era.  

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We, at GIHR, while celebrating this Day, join our voice to the Secretary-General's voice in her appeal to all governments and civil society organizations, and the stakeholders in the public and private sectors, to double their efforts, to commemorate this Day, and learn from its history, and learn from its lessons, to build a better world for the future generations.