The West is so preoccupied with our history of slavery that ended a century ago that we often forget that the practice is still rampant in most of the world in some form or another.
Take for example Ike Ekweremadu, 60, a district senator in Nigeria. He and his wife Nwanneka (Beatrice) transported a 21-year old man to the UK in order to harvest his kidney for their daughter who needs a transplant.
The man refused to allow the procedure after he underwent tests at the Royal Free Hospital in London and then escaped to a police station in Surrey, where he informed officers he was the Ekweremandus' slave but did not want his kidney harvested.
The Ekweremadus were apprehended at Heathrow Airport when they arrived on a flight from Turkey to collect the kidney and have been charged with conspiracy to facilitate travel of another person with a view to exploit, aka trafficking here in the US.
The Nigerian Senate sent a delegation to the UK on a solidarity mission to support Ekweremadu, and the Nigerian people were not too happy:
To be fair, the Nigerian constitution outlawed slavery in 1999 and says no person shall be held in slavery, the Criminal Code Act criminalizes slave dealing, and the slave trade officially ended in the 1940s. However, slave-like practices are still very much practiced in the country, usually involving trading labor for debt that can never be repaid or sex-trafficking of women and children.
It's unclear what category the man in the UK fell into, but thankfully, he was able to get away in one piece and didn't just wake up in a bathtub full of ice.
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