What Does Freedom Mean to You?

Slavery is closer than you think. With #MyFreedomDay Assembly yesterday, we went around and recorded our teachers and students asking – “What does Freedom mean to you” and “What would you consider Modern Slavery to be?”

If you have already watched the videos (please see previous article), you would know that all of them had a lot to say about Freedom and Modern Slavery, whether it be from a cultural, social, academic and overall experiential perspective. With the theme of this year’s #MyFreedomDay being ‘Ending Modern Slavery’, our students at ARIS had interesting perspectives that really make us think. There were of course answers to perspectives of Modern Slavery like Child Labor, Migrant Laborers, Underpaid and Stubbed House-helps; there were also answers like Enslavement to Technology and Artificial Intelligence, Exploited Cocoa Farmers, Enslaving one another with stereotypes, judgments, enslaving us even. There were also perspectives of Freedom like – Freedom of Sexuality, Freedom of Press and so on.

It really is humbling so see our students grow to be so aware and sensitive about issues that surround us. These are issues that need to be spoken about, and that need contemporary perspectives to fill gaps that have historically not been delved into. During the assembly, one overarching message was to keep our eyes peeled and ears open to slavery that surrounds us every day, closer than we think.

Our Guest Speaker, Professor Edmund Foley, who is the HoD for Public Law at Ghana Institute of Management and Public Administration, spoke about the different kinds of slavery today. It hits a haunting realization that Slavery today has evolved and is being shown in different forms, without necessarily being in literal chains and dungeons. He spoke about Child Marriages from cases he has encountered, Bonded Labor, Born Slaves (children born out of generations of Slaves to a Slave Master). He also spoke about Children who have been kidnapped and trafficked across borders, quite easily, into labor or cases of Sex slaves. Based on a case, he also told the students about how a poor mother sold her son for an equivalent of 50 GHC to get some money.

Silence engulfed the Assembly as students listened in at horrifying cases and incidents that are no less than pure evil Slavery. Professor Edmund closed his talk by giving an uplifting example of a Born (Bonded) Slave girl, in Niger, who on the verge of being forced to marry her Slave master. In all her struggles, she managed to escape him and eventually sued Niger’s government for not supporting cases as such, through the ECOWAS.

He is fighting against cases as such, almost every day. Likewise, he encouraged all the students present, that whether they be lawyers like him, poets, writers, journalists, economists, or even present day as students, they can still do something together and take steps towards ending ‘Modern Day’ Slavery. That really is the beauty of #MyFreedomDay being a worldwide movement led by schools, its an encouragement and a drive for students to also feel powerful and influential enough in their stands against issues like these. We hope that ARIS has done #MyFreedomDay 2018 Justice, and we will continue to stand for Freedom for all.