It is more than 170 years since slavery was abolished in Britain, but, as the UN commemorates the struggle agaist the trade in human lives, Glen Reynolds reports on how slavery is still alive and well in the 21st century.

The deaths of the Chinese cockle pickers in February this year was not only a human tragedy, it was a reminder of the continued existence of a practice thought to be long-dead. It was 1833 when Britain abolished slavery in its colonies, but time and again we find that it lives on, albeit under different names and guises.

The transportation of an estimated 11 million people from Africa to the New World, between the 16th and 19th centuries, may have become synonymous with the slave trade, but it has been a part of civilisation throughout most of recorded history. From the ancient Greeks and Romans, to the Incas and Mayas, to the Chinese, societies have long accepted the institution of slavery.

At the peak of the British Empire, in 1805 the House of Commons passed a Bill making it unlawful for any British subject to capture and transport slaves, but the measure was blocked by the House of Lords. It was not until 1833 that Parliament passed the Slavery Abolition Act, following a long campaign led by William Wilberforce.

But this did not mean the end of slavery. Six years later, the world's oldest human rights organisation, Anti-Slavery International, was founded, in the face of a trafficking in human beings which refused to die.

In 1883, 40 years after slavery had officially been abolished, the former editor of The Northern Echo, WT Stead, demonstrated its persistence, and earned himself a jail sentence, after buying Eliza Armstrong, the 13-year-old daughter of a chimney sweep, for £5, proving how easy it was to procure young girls for prostitution.

While slavery was dead, it lived on in different guises. It may go under another name, but the bonded labour which traps some 20 million people worldwide is just one of the forms of slavery still in existence.

Forced labour, which sees individuals recruited by governments or political parties and forced to work; child labour, where millions of children work in exploitative or dangerous conditions, including the sex industry; early and forced marriage, where women and girls are pushed into lives of servitude, and even the traditional or chattel slavery, involving the buying and selling of people, often abducted from their homes, inherited or given as gifts, all are a form of slavery.

But the fastest growing form of modern day slavery is human trafficking.

Traffickers use violence, coercion and deception to take people away from their homes and families, and force them to work against their will. People are trafficked both between countries and within their own country. Those trafficked may be forced to work as domestics, in prostitution, as farm labourers, factory workers, and in many other jobs.

The victims of this trade suffer incredible risks and hardships in order to escape poverty, persecution or war. They are promised a land paved with gold and fantastic opportunities, such as well-paid jobs, education, or marriage. Many imagine that they will be able to send money home to help their families.

According to Anti-Slavery International, trafficking in people remains a low risk high profit crime: where laws exist they are rarely implemented, and sentences are not commensurate with the crime. Those prosecuted for trafficking drugs can expect much more severe sentences than those prosecuted for trafficking human beings into slavery.

The majority of people trafficked are female, a consequence of the discrimination many face in their homelands.

Traffickers force their victims to work against their will. They may also restrict their victims' freedom of movement, force them to work long hours in dangerous conditions, and withhold payment.

But there is some hope in dealing with this problem.

During this United Nations International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition, the Council of Europe is drafting the European Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings, providing a valuable opportunity for European-wide protection against this slave trade.

It is crucial that when this legislation is debated, it contains provisions that are realistic in its aim to protect the victims of human trafficking and guarantees the protection of human rights at the heart of its aims. To do so, the Convention needs to require member states to provide trafficked people with at least three months permission to stay (a "reflection delay") while they recover from their ordeal and make an informed decision about their future. The legislation must ensure that the victims have access to the full range of assistance, protection and support services including access to medical help, training, education and employment opportunities, and financial support.

It should also provide them with renewable short-term residence permits, with the possibility of permanent residence for those who are especially vulnerable. It is vital that European governments do not miss this opportunity to protect trafficked people's rights.

Britain can be at the heart of this initiative, a driving force that is all part of a sense of reaching "closure" of its guilty past.

There are truly remarkable stories of human endeavour and suffering, especially in relation to the abuse of human rights of those of African descent, and Britain as world leader at the time has blood on its hands.

But the sweatshops, the migrant workers, those forced into prostitution or enslaved as a result of excessive debt, all indicate that Britain still has a shameful present and not just a past. This anti-slavery year reminds us of the work still needed to be done, some 170 years or so after our legislation considered the matter dead.