British Parliament passes the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act

On this date, The British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. The Act outlawed all slave trade within the British Empire, but did not abolish slavery; it only prohibited the trade in human beings. Any British naval captain who was caught transporting slaves was fined £100 for every slave found on board his ship. However, this law did not put a complete stop to the British slave trade. If slave-ships were in danger of being captured by the British navy, captains often reduced the fines they had to pay by ordering the slaves to be thrown out to sea. Slavery was later abolished by the Slavery Abolition Act, passed by British Parliament on 24 August 1833. It became law in 1834 and emancipated all the slaves in the British Empire. This affected South Africa , which was a British colony at the time, as many colonists at the Cape had a great deal of capital invested in their slaves. Colonists were particularly annoyed by the fact that compensation for the slaves was to be collected personally in England, and in many instances the cost would be more than the money received. Today, the 25 March has been declared International Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Slavery and the transatlantic Slave Trade. On 25 March 2007, the United Nations General Assembly marked the 200th anniversary of the end of the transatlantic slave trade, which claimed the lives of untold millions and shaped the complex history of Africa, the Caribbean region and the Americas. The Assembly Hall also acknowledged that, some 200 years after William Wilberforce effected the historic legislation, insidious forms of modern enslavement continued to increase. These modern forms of slavery include the trafficking in women and children, and bonded labour. With regards to this commemoration, Boniface Chidyausiku (Zimbabwe), acting President of the General Assembly, delivered this message on behalf of Assembly President, Sheikha Haya Rashed Al Khalifa: "Fortunes were made, and financial institutions flourished on the back of human bondage...[so] today's commemoration must encourage everyone to live up to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which says: 'All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights, and to redouble efforts to stop human trafficking and all forms of modern slavery,'"