Trafficking in Slavery’s Wake — 2012 ·

Law and the Experience of Women and Children in Africa

Edited by Benjamin N. Lawrance and Richard L. Roberts

Women and children have been bartered, pawned, bought, and sold within and beyond Africa for longer than records have existed. This important collection examines the ways trafficking in women and children has changed from the aftermath of the “end of slavery” in Africa from the late nineteenth century to the present.

The formal abolition of the slave trade and slavery did not end the demand for servile women and children. Contemporary forms of human trafficking are deeply interwoven with their historical precursors and scholars and activists need to be informed about the long history of trafficking in order to better assess and confront its contemporary forms. This book brings together the perspectives of leading scholars, activists, and other experts, creating a conversation that is essential for understanding the complexity of human trafficking in Africa.

Human trafficking is rapidly emerging as a core human rights issue for the twenty-first century. Trafficking in Slavery’s Wake is excellent reading for the researching, combating, and prosecuting of trafficking in women and children.

Benjamin N. Lawrance is the Barber B. Conable, Jr. Endowed Professor of International Studies at the Rochester Institute of Technology. He is the author of Local Foods Meet Global Foodways: Tasting History, Locality, Mobility, and ‘Nation’; Interpreters, Intermediaries and Clerks; and The Ewe of Togo and Benin.

Richard L. Roberts is the Frances and Charles Field Professor of History and the Director of the Center for African Studies at Stanford University. His most recent books include Domestic Violence and the Law in Colonial and Postcolonial Africa and Muslim Family Law in Sub-Saharan Africa: Colonial Legacies and Postcolonial Challenges.