Slavery Persists ~ Join Boubacar Messaoud's Fight

The BBC writes in Anti-slavery gong for Mauritanian of both uplifting and distressing news -- some 600,000 Mauritanians in Africa are slaves today despite slavery being illegalized (finally?) in 2007. But putting a spotlight on this ugly situation...

"A Mauritanian non-governmental organisation run by the son of a slave has won this year's Anti-Slavery International Award. SOS Esclaves was set up by Boubacar Messaoud, whose father was a slave, and Abdel Nasser Ould Othman Yessa, a former slave-owner."

See here Boubacar Messaoud explaining how he escaped slavery and yet why it persists. It's dismaying -- and evidence of a disturbingly uncivilized culture with diseased religious beliefs -- that something so basically vile as human involuntary servitude still endures in the modern era. This includes everything from inherited debts to bonded labor to forced marriages to military conscription and even to taxation without representation. I salute the heroism of those such as Mr Messaoud who shed their shackles and actively fight unjust powers and despicable ideas.