July 29, 2003

Lambeth Palace - The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, on a visit to a former centre of the West African slave trade, has spoken of the continuing challenge of "overcoming slavery in old and new forms."

In remarks delivered after receiving the honorary freedom of Freetown in Sierra Leone, Dr Williams said, "Even today we are not free from the slavery of destructive patterns of human behaviour.

"There is the slavery of poverty, the slavery of injustice, the slavery of greed - both sexual and financial, the slavery caused by the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and the slavery of violence in which bitterness and revenge can be guaranteed to keep people captive forever, unless delivered by truth and reconciliation. We must go on identifying and overcoming every kind of slavery we encounter in our society.

"In overcoming slaveries we learn to recognise one another as human and, in this way, we learn to see in each other the face of Christ."

Earlier, Dr Williams visited the Castle of Elmina, a centre of the international trade which sent countless thousands of Africans to a life of slavery.

Dr Williams linked his remarks to Church thanksgiving for the life of the anti-slavery William Wilberforce tomorrow (Wednesday). He said, "I was asked some years ago who I thought had been the greatest Briton of the last 1000 years. With all due respect to Winston Churchill and William Shakespeare, my answer was someone whom the Church will be celebrating this coming Wednesday. William Wilberforce did more to change to the course of human history in his work to abolish slavery than can easily be told."

The Archbishop is in Sierra Leone as part of a visit to the Anglican Communion Province of West Africa that also takes him to Ghana and The Gambia.

Anglican Communion News Service