IV 
111TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. RES. 929 
Recognizing December 2 as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery 
and the 60th anniversary of the adoption by the United Nations General 
Assembly of the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons 
and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others and commending 
the efforts of modern day abolitionists following in the tradition of 
Frederick Douglass. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
NOVEMBER 19, 2009 
Ms. RICHARDSON (for herself, Mrs. CHRISTENSEN, Ms. NORTON, Mr. HARE, 
Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. FATTAH, Mr. COHEN, Ms. MOORE of Wis-
consin, Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas, Mr. GRIJALVA, and Mr. HONDA) 
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee 
on Foreign Affairs 
RESOLUTION 
Recognizing December 2 as the International Day for the 
Abolition of Slavery and the 60th anniversary of the 
adoption by the United Nations General Assembly of 
the Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in 
Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of 
Others and commending the efforts of modern day aboli-
tionists following in the tradition of Frederick Douglass. 
Whereas Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus 
Washington Bailey near Easton, Maryland, in February 
of 1818 and lived the first 20 years of his life as a slave 
before escaping to freedom in 1838 through the Under-
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ground Railroad and, with the assistance of abolitionists, 
resettled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, changed his 
name to avoid recapture by fugitive slave bounty hunters, 
and began a new life as Frederick Douglass; 
Whereas Frederick Douglass, who had no formal education 
and taught himself to read and write, would go on to be-
come one of the Nation’s leading abolitionists, and whose 
seminal work, ‘‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Doug-
lass, an American Slave’’, explained with unsurpassed 
eloquence and detail how slavery corrupts the human 
spirit and robs both master and slave of their freedom; 
Whereas Frederick Douglass, through his writings, lectures, 
speeches, activism, and friendship with President Lincoln 
helped the Nation summon the will to accept civil war as 
the price to abolish slavery and emancipate millions from 
bondage; 
Whereas Frederick Douglass devoted his life to the struggle 
for freedom, human dignity, and the full measure of civil 
and human rights for all men and women, famously ob-
serving that ‘‘where there is no struggle, there is no 
progress; power concedes nothing without demand. It 
never has and never will.’’; 
Whereas notwithstanding the end of the Transatlantic slave 
trade two centuries ago or ending of the Civil War, 
issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation, and ratifica-
tion of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States 
Constitution, the scourge of modern day slavery and traf-
ficking in persons still confronts the international com-
munity and must continue to be met with the fierce re-
sistance and determined opposition that was the hallmark 
of Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists of the 19th 
century; 
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Whereas 60 years ago the international community, acting 
through the United Nations, affirmed its opposition to 
modern day slavery and human trafficking and expressed 
its resolve to combat this evil by adopting the Convention 
for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the 
Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others on December 
2, 1949, and later proclaimed December 2 as the ‘‘Inter-
national Day for the Abolition of Slavery’’; 
Whereas the international community has also adopted other 
conventions to combat the trafficking in persons and 
modern day slavery, including the Protocol to Prevent, 
Suppress & Punish Trafficking in Persons, International 
Labor Organization Convention 182, Elimination of 
Worst Forms of Child Labor, Optional Protocol to the 
Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of 
Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, Op-
tional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the 
Child in Armed Conflict, International Labor Organiza-
tion Convention 29, Forced Labour, and the Inter-
national Labor Organization Convention 105, Abolition of 
Forced Labour; 
Whereas despite the efforts of governments and nongovern-
mental organizations such as the Frederick Douglass 
Family Foundation, Human Rights Watch, Global 
Rights, the Coalition Against Slavery and Trafficking, 
Safe Horizon, Break the Chains, and the Polaris Project 
to eradicate the scourge of human trafficking, the prob-
lem persists and manifests itself in the following forms 
of modern-day slavery, forced labor, involuntary domestic 
servitude, sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, bonded 
labor, forced child labor, and child soldiers, and debt 
bondage among migrant laborers; 
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