She was recommended by Ruth Klein, national director of B’nai Brith Canada’s League for Human Rights and executive director of the National Task Force on Holocaust Education, Remembrance and Research (NTF), and Adam Fuerstenberg, Professor Emeritus at Ryerson University and former director of the Holocaust Centre of Toronto. Fuerstenberg is assisting Sapoznik with a book project, Holocaust by Bullets, which looks at the mass murder of Jews in Berezne during World War II. Sapoznik has been invited to make a presentation about her research to a coming meeting of the NTF in Toronto later this year.

“I’m incredibly humbled and honoured and I look forward to the opportunity,” said Sapoznik, who had just returned from an international conference in Sierra Leone, Africa, on forced marriage in conflict situations.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer, with files courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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The AAMS, a new not-for-profit organization with a mission to end slavery through research, education and partnerships with other organizations, will celebrate its launch at 91��ɫ with two events. The first is a benefit concert and anti-slavery art auction, Party for Freedom, on Friday, Jan. 28, in the Sandra Faire & Ivan Fecan Theatre, from 7 to 10pm. The second is the Slavery in the 21st Century conference on Saturday, Jan. 29, from 9 to 5:30pm, in the Founders Assembly Hall, 152 Founders College, Keele campus.

“Modern-day slavery is arguably the most underpublicized human rights crisis of our time,” says Sapoznik (MA ’08). Twenty-seven million “is equivalent to the entire population of Canada in the early 1990s. There are reported cases of slavery in every country in the world today with two exceptions: Iceland and Greenland. Public awareness of modern slavery also is low, enabling traffickers to lure thousands of victims into forced labour situations. Canada, for instance, is a source, transit and destination country for human trafficking.”

AAMS has strong ties to 91��ɫ. Many of its executive members are 91��ɫ graduate history students, and Paul Lovejoy, director of the , is one of the board members.

The freedom concert will feature motivational speaker Roger Cram of Hiram College as the emcee; anti-slavery activist, TED Speaker and AAMS board member , president and co-founder of ; survivor Natasha Falle; Glendene Grant, the mother of missing human trafficking victim Jessie Foster; actress, singer and songwriter Kate Todd; guitar player and Janelle Belgrave of Peace Concept; ; an anti-slavery art auction; the Fashion Studio 7 filming crew; and more.

AAMS’s inaugural conference, Slavery in the 21st Century, will examine a variety of issues affecting slavery today. It will feature Sapoznik; Paul Lovejoy, director of 91��ɫ’s Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples; and University of Toronto Professor Emeritus Martin Klein. Bales will open the conference, followed by four panel discussions. The complete schedule is .

Canadian NGOs Freeing Slaves
Moderator: Roger Cram, Hiram College
Speakers: Jamie McIntosh of , Lisa Cheong of , Julia Smith-Brake of and Adam Churchman of .

Canadian Front-line Activists, Survivors, Filmmakers and Fair Trade Advocates
Moderators: Jeff Gunn and Mekhala Gunaratne of Alliance Against Modern Slavery
Speakers: Christina Cudahy of Abuse of Migrant Workers in the Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program; University of British Columbia student Brittany Luby (MA ’08), founder of Indigenous 91��ɫ, who will show the five-minute video Trafficking of First Nations Women; Glendene Grant, the mother of missing human trafficking victim Jessie Foster; Azra Rashid, a filmmaker and writer who is currently developing a documentary on forced marriages in Canada; and Michael Sacco of ChocoSol.

Forced Labour, Forced Sex and Forced Marriage – Legal Responses and Law Enforcement Against Modern Slavery in Canada
Moderator: 91��ɫ Professor Annie Bunting of the Law & Society Program
Speakers: Marty Van Doren, the RCMP’s human trafficking awareness coordinator in Ontario; Heather Richardson of Peel Regional Police; University of British Columbia law Professor , founder of the non-governmental organization fighting human trafficking and the child sex trade , and author of Invisible Chains: Canada’s Underground World of Human Trafficking (Viking Canada, 2010), has a video message; and Deepa Mattoo, a community legal worker at the .

Government Responses to Modern Slavery
Moderator: 91��ɫ West Councillor Anthony Perruzza with assistance from Valerie Hébert of AAMS
Speakers: Conservative MP Joy Smith, Manitoba, and Peggy Nash, president of the federal New Democratic Party, with a video message from MP Glen Pearson.

To register for the conference or buy tickets to the concert, visit the website.

Republished courtesy of YFile– 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin

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Left: Annie Bunting

Bringing together historians of slavery and women's human rights scholars, this workshop will explore the phenomenon of forced marriage and enslavement from comparative and historical perspectives.

During conflicts in Sierra Leone, Liberia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Uganda and Rwanda, women were kidnapped, raped and forced into "marriages" with combatants. recently found such gender violations to constitute a new crime against humanity of forced marriage as opposed to sexual slavery.

Workshop speakers will explore the merits of prosecuting those responsible for forced marriage under the heading of Sexual Slavery, Forced Marriage or Enslavement? They will also explore the historical antecedents of servile marriage and enslavement of women.

A keynote presenter at the workshop is , chair of the Women's Forum in Sierra Leone, a national umbrella organization of women's groups in the region. M'Carthy has been working with the for the past three years and will speak about the experiences of female victims in the Sierra Leone war. Other presenters will discuss comparable practices in Uganda, Rwanda and the DRC.

Speaking at the workshop are:

• , president of Free the Slaves
• Gaëlle Breton-LeGoff, a lecturer at the University of Quebec in Montreal
• 91��ɫ law & society Professor
• , a senior researcher in children, armed conflict and human rights at the Feinstein International Center at Tufts University
• 91��ɫ Distinguished Research Professor Paul Lovejoy, director of The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples and
• Rosaline M’Carthy, President, Women's Forum of Sierra Leone
• , Open Society Initiative for Eastern Africa (OSIEA), Harvard Law School
• Osgoode Hall Law School Professor
• University of Hull Professor Joel Quirk,
• , RCUK Fellow in International Slavery at the University of Liverpool
• , 91��ɫ PhD candidate in history, The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples
• Jody Sarich, DePaul University, Free the Slaves

This workshop is the first of two conferences supported by a grant. In February 2011, Bunting will host a larger international conference in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Today's workshop is supported by numerous areas at 91��ɫ, including the Nathanson Centre on Transnational Human Rights, Crime & Security, the Office of the Provost, the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, the dean of the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies (LA&PS), and The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples.

For more information, visit The Harriet Tubman Institute for Research on the Global Migrations of African Peoples website or contact Kathy Mirzaei, interim graduate program assistant, Department of Sociology, LA&PS.

Republished courtesy of YFile – 91��ɫ’s daily e-bulletin.

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