Human slavery a greater evil today than during transatlantic trade

HUMAN slavery is a bigger scourge now than it was 200 years ago, former British Tory leader William Hague will warn today.

In a speech to the Centre for Social Justice, Mr Hague will argue that criminals have revived the “evil trade” which Victorian reformers such as Abraham Lincoln and William Wilberforce helped abolish. More people are being sold into slavery today than the total number taken from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade, he is expected to say.

Mr Hague will use his inaugural Abraham Lincoln lecture, the first in a series of talks, to call for a new crusade against slavery.