Source:CNN
A modest office block squeezed between a doctor’s surgery and a south London housing project is an unlikely setting to find a man described on Time’s most recent 100 List as “an inspiration to thousands.”
Yet there is much about Biram Dah Abeid, a prominent anti-slavery activist from the North African nation of Mauritania, that confounds convention.
In recent years Abeid has run for president of his home nation, founded a mass anti-slavery movement and been feted internationally for his work as an abolitionist.
Last year, former US Secretary of State John Kerry presented Abeid and fellow activist Brahim Ramdhane with a Trafficking in Persons Report Heroes Award. Abeid also received the UN Human Rights Prize in 2013, an honor previously bestowed upon the likes of Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King.
In Mauritania, however, Abeid’s protests have seen him jailed on three separate occasions, become a hero to his supporters and a thorn in the side of those he says refuse to address the slavery issue.
Categories: Africa