The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 as the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition (having welcomed the fact that UNESCO had proclaimed it as such earlier).
The General Assembly resolution in its entirety (of which this declaration was a single paragraph) was voted against by the Israel, Palau and the United States, with Australia and Canada abstaining.
The United Nations International Years, beginning with the World Refugee Year in 1959/1960, are designated in order to focus world attention on important issues. The proclamation of an international year to commemorate the struggle against slavery and its abolition marked the bicentenary of the proclamation of the first black state, Haiti, as well as the reunion of the peoples of Africa, the Americas, the Caribbean and Europe.
Among the initiatives that marked the commemorative year was a virtual exhibition, Lest We Forget: The Triumph over Slavery, created by the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and New York Public Library.
Another effort that was launched during the year was a research and information programme, Forgotten Slaves. The programme was implemented by the French Marine Archaeology Group (GRAN) with the support of UNESCO. It was inspired by the wreck of the slave ship l’Utile off the shores of the Tromelin Island in the Indian Ocean in 1761 and was intended to be part of an information campaign to raise awareness of both the history of slavery and modern forms of slavery.
Famous quotes containing the words year, struggle, slavery and/or abolition:
“They give us a pair of cloth shorts twice a year for all our clothing. When we work in the sugar mills and catch our finger in the millstone, they cut off our hand; when we try to run away, they cut off our leg: both things have happened to me. It is at this price that you eat sugar in Europe.”
—Voltaire [François Marie Arouet] (1694–1778)
“The woman’s world ... is shown as a series of limited spaces, with the woman struggling to get free of them. The struggle is what the film is about; what is struggled against is the limited space itself. Consequently, to make its point, the film has to deny itself and suggest it was the struggle that was wrong, not the space.”
—Jeanine Basinger (b. 1936)
“We say that slavery has vanished from European civilization, but this is not true. Slavery still exists, but now it applies only to women and its name is prostitution.”
—Victor Hugo (1802–1885)
“Woman—with a capital letter—should by now have ceased to be a specialty. There should be no more need of “movements” on her behalf, and agitations for her advancement and development ... than for the abolition of negro slavery in the United States.”
—Marion Harland (1830–1922)