Part of HMP's commemoration is acknowledging where we are now...

"Mauritania has officially abolished slavery three times -- once under French colonial rule, in 1905; at independence, in 1960; and again in 1980. Despite those edicts, slavery persists. No reliable statistics are available on the number of slaves, but estimates from human-rights groups range from the low thousands to more than 100,000. The U.S. State Department set the figure at 90,000 in 1994, its most recent estimate."

excerpted from, A Sociology Professor in Mauritania Fights Its Slave SystemBy DANIEL DEL CASTILLO

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