Abandon All Forms Of Slavery - Zita
A Grand durbar and a wreath-laying ceremony have been held at Assin Manso in the Central Region to climax this year’s celebration of Emancipation Day, with a call on Ghanaians to abandon all forms of ‘slavery’.
The Minister of Tourism, Mrs Zita Okaikoi, who made the call, said, “Slavery cannot be consigned to history so long as men, women and children are still being coerced, drugged, tricked and sold to do dangerous and degrading work against their will.”
She said it was obvious that neither emancipation nor independence could guarantee freedom simply by proclamation.
The celebration, which was on the theme, “Rejuvenating the Desire and Aspiration of the Youth”, was graced by a retinue of gorgeously dressed chiefs and queens, led by Barima Kwame Nkyi, the Paramount Chief of the Assin Apimanim Traditional Area, and other Africans from the Diaspora.
Mrs Okaikoi said it was important that all people everywhere made a commitment to take a firm stance against slavery and any form of bondage, adding that despite the fact that all human beings were born free and equal, thousands of women and children continued to be sold into forced labour and exploited beyond imagination.
“We must keep fighting the wrongs and ills in our society if we are to attain the target of respect for human dignity, to enable us to live and feel the reality of emancipation on the African continent,” she stated.
A representative of African Americans in Ghana, Dr Margaret Price, called on the youth to unite, renew their minds, eschew selfish behaviours and believe that they could make it on the African continent.
She noted that the future of the Diaspora and the African continent depended largely on the youth and urged them to emancipate themselves from mental slavery to enable them to build their societies.
Barima Nkyi advised the youth not to throw themselves into voluntary slavery by travelling abroad to work in demeaning and dangerous conditions but work hard on the continent, adding, “The freedom fought for us must be celebrated in all we do.”
In a speech read on her behalf, the Central Regional Minister, Mrs Ama Benyiwa Doe, said emancipation celebrations must translate into economic and socio-political development.
Wreaths were laid at the ancestral graveyard at Assin Manso on the tombs of Samuel Carson and Crystal, both Africans in the Diaspora whose remains had been re-interred at Assin Manso.