Prof Julia O’Connell Davidson likens the government’s plans to deport asylum seekers to the forced returns facilitated by the Fugitive Slave Act in the US. Plus a letter from Mark Stephens

Priti Patel claims that the policy of deporting asylum seekers to Rwanda is a means to combat criminal gangs involved in people trafficking – a form of modern-day slavery. Yet, unlike African victims of the transatlantic slave trade, the people described as trafficked today actively want to move, and for very good reason.

A better historical comparison is with people who tried to escape from slavery. Like “fugitive slaves”, they move in search of greater freedom. Through this lens, Patel’s Rwanda policy looks more like the forms of rendition facilitated by the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act in the US, whereby those who escaped were more readily returned to the condition they had fled.

This post was originally published on Human rights | The Guardian.

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» Rwanda refugee policy is like the rendition of slaves in the 1800s | Letters | Letters | radiofree.asia | https://radiofree.asia/2022/06/16/rwanda-refugee-policy-is-like-the-rendition-of-slaves-in-the-1800s-letters/ | 2024-04-25T12:04:21+00:00

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