Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery
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The Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery was a committee of the United Nations (UN), created in 1950.[1] It investigated the occurence of slavery on a global level. Its final report resulted in the introduction of the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery of 1956.
History[edit]
The global investigation of the occurrence of slavery and slave trade performed by the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery (ACE) between 1934 and 1939, was interupted by the outbreak of the World War II, but it lay the foundation for the work against slavery performed by the UN after the war.[2]
After World War II, there was growing international pressure from the United Nations to end the slave trade. When the League of Nations was succeeded by the United Nations (UN) after the end of the World War II, Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge of the Anti-Slavery International advocated for the UN to continue the investigation of global slavery conducted by the ACE of the League.[3]
In 1948, the United Nations declared slavery to be a crime against humanity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, after which the Anti-Slavery Society pointed out that there were about one million slaves in the Arabian Peninsula, which was a crime against the 1926 Slavery Convention, and demanded that the UN form a committee to handle the issue.[4]
Greenidge's campaign met success in 1949, when the UN formed their ad hoc Committee on Slavery. The Committee was formally inaugurated with its first meeting at Lake Success in February 1950.[5]
At the time of the Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery, legal chattel slavery still excisted only in the Arabian Peninsula: in Oman, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, in the Trucial States and in Yemen. Chattel slavery was officially banned in the rest of the world. However, chattel slavery still excisted de facto despite the formal law in several parts of Africa.
Legacy[edit]
The Committee filed its final report to the ECOSOC in 1951, and it was published in 1953. The report lay the ground work for the creation of a new anti slavery convention known as the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, which was presented in 1954 and introduced in 1956.[6]
Legal chattel slavery was finnally abolished in the Arabian Peninsula in the 1960s: Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962, Dubai in 1963 and Oman in 1970.
See also[edit]
- Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90, 1889
- Temporary Slavery Commission, 1924
- Committee of Experts on Slavery, 1932
- Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery, 1933
References[edit]
- ^ The Suppression of Slavery: Memorandum Submitted by the. United Nations. Secretary-General, 1946-, United Nations. Economic and Social Council. Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery. United Nations Economic and Social Council, Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery, 1951
- ^ Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 294
- ^ Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 326
- ^ Suzanne Miers: Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem, p. 310
- ^ Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 323-324
- ^ Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 326