End of Slavery

Ghana remembered the 200th anniversary of the end of the slave trade this week. Slavery has been around the world since the beginning of man. But only one culture has voluntarily ended it. The English-speaking world, Great Britain first, then the US, of its own volition outlawed first trade in slaves, then all slavery in 1833 in GB, 1865 in the US. On the other hand slavery is still practiced in Muslim countries.

See the story of Mende Nazer. And see Slavery in Sudan at Wikipedia.

Swiss Info on Ghana:

ELMINA, Ghana (Reuters) - Two hundred years after Britain's abolition of the slave trade, Africans marked the anniversary on Sunday with a sombre ceremony recalling the suffering of their ancestors and the lasting scars of slavery.

Descendants of slaves and dignitaries gathered at a white-washed former slave fort at Elmina in Ghana to remember the more than 10 million Africans -- some estimates say up to 60 million -- sent on slave ships to the New World.

"Through this dark era of human history, the mystery of it all ... was the indomitable human spirit that could not be broken," said Ghana's President John Kufuor, his voice echoing around the castle courtyard.

"Man should never descend to such low depths of inhumanity to man as the slave trade ever again."