Today Tuesday 23 August is International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition

The United Nations’ (UN) International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition is annually observed on August 23 to remind people of the tragedy of the transatlantic slave trade. It gives people a chance to think about the historic causes, the methods and the consequences of slave trade. However the slave trade continues today.

Further Information

James Koffi Annan is 37 years old. He is a survivor of child trafficking and slave labour in Ghana. Like many children at his age James Koffi Annan was sold to a broker when he was 6 years old and then sold on to a fisherman. Until he was 16 he worked as a child fisherman in more than 20 villages. After escaping slavery as an illiterate teenager, he befriended children attending kindergarden and used their schoolbooks to teach himself to read and write.

Despite severe poverty and abuse, he rose to become a university graduate and now holds a Master’s degree. He eventually became a manager at Barclay's Bank of Ghana, but resigned in 2007 to promote the mission of Challenging Heights full-time.

James Kofi Annan established Challenging Heights in 2003 to provide education and support for children who have returned from slavery and horrific forms of child labor. Now age 37, Annan leads Challenging Heights as Executive Director.

“My organisation, Challenging Heights works with rural farming and fishing communities. I mobilise communities in the fight against exploitation of children in the areas of child labour, child trafficking, and to promote children’s education and health.

Through my work, I often deal directly with child traffickers in source communities and in the fishing industry. This work is dangerous and I have been the target of death threats and physical confrontations. The death threats became so intense that in the first two weeks of January 2010, I received at least 30 death threats per day. The child traffickers who see me as a threat to their businesses have made several attempts on my life. These threats have not deterred me from my mission of rescuing children from modern day enslavement”.

Between 2003 and 2010 Challenging Heights has rescued over 500 children from child trafficking and assisted over 4,000 vulnerable and at-risk children from enslavement in the fishing communities in Ghana. It has held nearly 50 sensitisation events and been widely reported in the media.

“James Kofi Annan is an example of how one person can rise above a life of brutality and oppression to become a shining light in the struggle for human rights. In defending the rights of children to an education he is also offering them the key to a completely different life The international slave trade was one of the greatest crimes against humanity committed in the name of economic development and commercial advantage – it is an unmitigated scandal that it should continue in any form today” said Mary Lawlor Executive Director of Front Line Defenders in Dublin today.

James Koffi Annan is one of the 120 human rights defenders who will be attending the 6th Dublin Platform for Human Rights Defenders at Risk each of whom has a similar story to tell of courage and dedication to defending the rights of others.

The Front Line Dublin Platform will run in Dublin Castle from the 14-16 September 2011.

If you would like to speak to James Kofi Annan or to any of the other human rights defenders who will be attending the Front Line Dublin Platform

Contact Jim Loughran, Head of Communications Front Line at

+ 353 1 212 37 50 or Mob 353 (0)87 9377586

jimloughran@frontlinedefenders.org

You can also contact Front Line by media at media@frontlinedefenders.org