Nobel laureate and acclaimed Nigerian playwright Professor Wole Soyinka has argued that elements of the slave trade persist in contemporary forms across Africa, pointing to the kidnapping and trafficking of children and young people into what he described as “extant slave markets.”
Speaking at the opening of the Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice in Accra on Thursday, June 18, 2026, Soyinka stressed that discussions on reparations must also confront ongoing human exploitation. “That sector which agitates me most, you have what I call the conglomeratives of perpetual iniquity,” he said. “I refer to the extant slave markets which still exist in this country, on this continent.”
He highlighted the abduction of schoolchildren for trafficking as evidence that slavery has not been eradicated despite the formal abolition of the transatlantic trade. “Ultimately, these kidnapped victims are being sent through special channels to the slave markets of this continent,” he noted.
Drawing on experiences from Nigeria, Soyinka said authorities have undertaken rescue efforts to retrieve citizens from trafficking networks. “If you make inquiries from Nigeria, where I come from, from the Department of the Diaspora, you will learn of even rescue planes, chartered planes, which have managed to retrieve nationals from the slave markets and brought them back to Nigeria,” he explained.
He described emotional scenes involving rescued victims returning home. “They arrive, unlike emotional returnees, their first action is a symbolic act of kneeling and kissing the ground from which they had been taken,” he said. Soyinka expressed particular concern about children and young people who remain vulnerable to kidnapping and trafficking.
“But the most pernicious of these iniquities are the children, the youths, who till today have been kidnapped and sent to the slave markets to be shared by their kidnappers,” he said. The Nobel laureate said he had raised similar concerns during an address to the United Nations last year.
“When I addressed the United Nations last year, I made it clear that the slave trade is not over — it remains very active,” Nobel laureate Wole Soyinka said. “Even as I speak now, children and youths, including schoolchildren, are being held in forest hideouts destined for slave markets.”
He also criticised nations that have resisted or dismissed calls for reparatory justice, arguing that ongoing exploitation strengthens the case for reparations and historical accountability. “If ever there was a justification for this gathering, it is those of that mental state — a retrogressive understanding of history and of human relationships,” he remarked.
The Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice brought together heads of state, government officials, scholars, and advocates from around the world to discuss strategies for advancing reparations for the transatlantic slave trade and its enduring legacy.
Source: William Narh
