Wilberforce

Last week I went to see the film 'Amazing Grace' - the story of Wilberforce's campaign in Parliament 200 years ago to abolish slavery. The film certainly didn't bowl me over, I even thought it was a little underwhelming and trite given the story it was telling.

Wilberforce lived, for a time, just up the road from us opposite Wimbledon Common as the blue plaque testifies!

Related to this 200th anniversary of the 'abolition' of slavery there has been a big letter writing campaign to Members of Parliament from 'Stop the Traffik'. They are campaigning against people trafficking.....basically slavery. The problem is huge and the statistics are overwhelming - it is the fastest growing form of international crime, a $7bn a year industry with between 600,000-800,000 people trafficked across international borders annually.

People Trafficking like Tsunamis, Osama bin Laden and Global Warming was unheard of in popular culture a few years back and I'd suggest it's a much bigger problem than all three.