Latest Slavery News

New York City lawmakers approve bill to study slavery and reparations

Sep. 12, 2024 19:25 PM EDT

NEW YORK (AP) — New York City lawmakers approved legislation Thursday to study the city's significant role in slavery and consider reparations to descendants of enslaved people. If signed into law, the package of bills passed by the City Council would follow in the footsteps of...

Trinidad and Tobago reckons with colonialism in a debate on statues, signs and monuments of its past

Aug. 29, 2024 22:36 PM EDT

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) — In a small auditorium in the seaside capital of Trinidad and Tobago, Christopher Columbus and other colonial-era figures came under scrutiny late Wednesday in a lengthy debate punctuated by snickers, applause and outbursts. The government had asked...

Italian tax police free 33 Indian workers from 'slave-like' conditions on farms

Jul. 14, 2024 05:24 AM EDT

ROME (AP) — Italy’s tax police said Saturday they had freed 33 Indian farm workers from “slave-like working conditions” in the northern province of Verona, while seizing almost half a million euros from the two alleged gangmasters. Police said the two alleged abusers, also...

Mauritania's President Ghazouani wins reelection, the electoral commission says

Jul. 01, 2024 13:59 PM EDT

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani has been reelected for a second term, the country's electoral commission said on Monday, after positioning the country as a strategic ally of the West in a region swept by coups and violence. Ghazouani,...

Mauritania’s President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani on track for reelection, provisional results show

Jun. 30, 2024 10:22 AM EDT

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Mauritania's President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani is on track to secure a second mandate after positioning the country as a strategic ally of the West in a region swept by coups and violence, provisional results showed on Sunday. Ghazouani, who is seeking...

California voters to weigh proposal to ban forced prison labor in state constitution

Jun. 27, 2024 16:05 PM EDT

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California voters will decide in November whether to remove an exemption for involuntary servitude from the state constitution under a proposal the state Legislature approved Thursday. In California and many other states, the state constitution bans...

Mauritania goes to the polls with a regional security crisis and economic concerns among the issues

Jun. 27, 2024 09:55 AM EDT

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Nearly 2 million people go to the polls on Saturday in Mauritania, a vast desert nation in West Africa which positions itself as a strategic ally of the West in a region swept by coups and violence, but has been denounced for rights abuses. President...