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keeping a slave in the uk.

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mollykins | 09:20 Sat 13th Nov 2010 | Law
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I was surprised to hear last night on QI that it wasn't illegal to keep and slave in the uk until earlier this year.

But how would you have obtained one if kidnap and people trafficing etc were illegal anyway?
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May I suggest people watch the programme to see what was said, I can't remember it verbatim. And yes, DrFilth, I am aware of Wilberforce.
plus no workplace heath and safety training
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That's why i said, how was is possible to keep a slave, which was legal, if all the other laws such as kidnap were in place.
Fear..
try and watch a film like this

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0461872/
The main point of QI is to show that ideas that people assume are obviously true are either not quite right or are simply wrong. The legal status of slavery in this country was one of the topics in last night's programme.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mOCsNrzlV2k
Dr Filth - astonishingly it's true. Stephen Fry actually told us the estimated number of slaves in the world today. I can't remember the exact figure but it runs into millions. Unbelievable!
25 million (wasn't it?)
I think it was 23 million...? But was well into the wine by then so could be wrong.
Can't remember, bibblebub, but it was an amazingly high number.
this was a bit closer to home
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=evynMPaGd6w&feature=related
Wikipedia says estimates vary between 19 and 27 million slaves worldwide.
Here it is on iPlayer: http://www.bbc.co.uk/...ies_8_House_and_Home/

and the part about slavery starts at 20:10 - it has never been illegal to have a slave in this country until 2010, and there are currently an estimated 27 million in the world.
It has to be said, Molly comes up with some 'Quite Interesting' questions. Good for you Molly. :o)
most slaves would be fed some food to keep them alive , wonder if they teach about the highland clearances in school

#
The whole of the inhabitants of Kildonan, numbering nearly 2000 souls, except three families, were utterly rooted and burnt out, and the whole parish converted into a solitary wilderness. The suffering was intense. Some lost their reason.

Over a hundred souls took passage to Caithness in a small sloop, the master humanely agreeing to take them in the hold, from which he had just unloaded a cargo of quicklime. A head storm came on, and they were nine days at sea in the most miserable condition -- men, women and helpless children huddled up together, with barely any provisions. Several died in consequence and others became invalids for the rest of their days. One man, Donald Mackay, whose family was suffering from a severe fever, carried two of his children a distance of twenty-five miles to this vessel.

Another old man took shelter in a meal mill, where he was kept from starvation by licking the meal refuse scattered among the dust on the floor, and protected from the rats and other vermin by his faithful collie.

George Munro, the miller at Farr, who had six of his family down with fever, had to remove them in that state to a damp kiln, while his home was given to the flames.

And all this was done in the name of proprietors who could not be considered tyrants in the ordinary sense of the term. #
Then there are people who voluntarily enter into relationships of master and slave. But such relationships may not be suitable topics for discussion here in AB
Typical QI A bit of special pleading or a trick question is part of the fun

The reference is io the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 s. 71 . What it does is recite in law the provisions of article 4 of the Human Rights Convention of 1950 which refers to 'slavery, servitude or compulsory labour' . There's never been any doubt that keeping someone a slave in England was a crime contrary to common law , however we termed the act of doing so.It would be odd indeed, given that Parliament had enacted various laws preventing or abolishing slavery and one to punish trading in slaves, but it remained legal to keep one in England.If it were legal and no crime why was not everyone doing it? But hitherto there has not been a statute specifying the offence of 'slavery, servitude or compulsory labour' in terms.The last two are less than true slavery and the provision may be aimed at the kind of conditions which some farm labourers in Britain were were bound by in the C19. They were not slaves but were effectively bound almost as though they were.

There's nothing particularly odd in there being no statute before. Murder, kidnapping and false imprisonment, among other offences, still have no statute defining or 'creating' them as crimes.

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