The Latest Breaking News from Slavery

'Fig leaf' tariffs blasted as US fires fresh tax salvo

A new round of US tariffs has generated a rare moment of political unity in Australia, with the government and opposition pushing back on the proposed changes.

AAP · Jun 3

Was Lincoln More Radical Than We Remember?

Damon Root discusses the path to emancipation, the struggle to secure freedom after the Civil War, and the constitutional changes that remade America.

Reason · Jun 3

French slavery law repealed: 'Now we can start talking about reparations,' historian says

Now that France has finally repealed the so-called Code Noir or Black Code, experts are urging the country to also consider the issue of reparations. The Code Noir was the law that effectively regulated slavery by making people like property, notably in the French colonies – enabling people to be…

France 24 · Jun 2

Colorado voted to end forced prison labor in 2018 – so why are incarcerated people in the state still working for less than $2 an hour?

Colorado voters passed Amendment A, a ballot measure touted as an end to slavery in state prisons in 2018. The amendment eliminated the penal exception clause, which allowed the state to use forced labor in addition to incarceration as a punishment for crime.

The Conversation · May 29

'We Are Descendants of Human Beings': Tears in Parliament as France Repeals 1685 Slavery Law

France's parliament has unanimously repealed the 1685 Code Noir, a colonial law defining enslaved Africans as property, marking a symbolic step in acknowledging the nation's colonial past.

International Business Times UK · May 29

254-0 French Parliament votes to repeal law from slavery era

France's Parliament has voted to abolish the Black Code. This colonial law, enacted in 1685, treated enslaved people as property. For nearly two centuries after slavery's abolition, the law remained on the books. The National Assembly unanimously repealed the decree. Lawmakers acknowledged the deep historical impact of this legislation. The…

The Economic Times · May 28

French parliament inches towards symbolic repeal of 'Code noir' slavery legislation

France abolished enslaving humans more than 170 years ago and in 2001 recognised slavery and the slave trade as "crimes against humanity."

Euronews · May 28

What to know about Code Noir, a shocking French law that oversaw the slavery of 1.4 million Africans

France’s lower house has voted finally to scrub a foundational slavery-era edict from French law

The Independent UK · May 28

The forgotten story of abolition in revolutionary France – the first emancipation

On Aug. 21, 1789, just a month after the storming of the Bastille that launched the French Revolution, France’s new governing body, the National Assembly, approved the first article of its historic Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen.

The Conversation · May 28

France's parliament votes to repeal slavery-era Black Code, with tears and history in the chamber

French lawmakers have voted to repeal a 17th-century law that governed enslaved people in France's colonies

AAP · May 28