OG Note: I want you to get this straight, now. The children are sold as slave labor to cocoa and cotton plantations. Rev. Sharpton is going to target oil companies to help stop the trade. WTF? Am I missing something here?

NYPost

REV. AL TARGETS OIL GIANTS OVER SUDAN

By DAN MANGAN

April 15, 2001 -- Fresh from a fact-finding trip to Sudan, the Rev. Al Sharpton yesterday deplored the slave trade in that war-torn African country and called for sanctions against oil companies doing business there.

"Our position is that slavery is wrong no matter who the slave master or the slave is. This is not about Muslims vs. Christians. This is about right vs. wrong," Sharpton said at his National Action Network headquarters in Harlem.

"It is time for us to really deal with taking the profit out of the trade."

Tens of thousands of slaves have been taken during a civil war in the sub-Saharan country, largely by Arab Muslims who have captured black Christians and animists.

Meanwhile, a ship containing an estimated 100-250 suspected child slaves was turned away from two African ports and remains at sea off West Africa.

Officials in Benin said the ship was likely to return to the city of Cotonou, the contry's commercial capital, where it set to sea more than a week ago.

Aid workers said impoverished parents are often duped into giving up their children to smugglers who promise to educate the kids and find work for them.

The children, whose parents are paid as little as $14, can be resold for as much as $340 to work on cocoa or cotton plantations.

In Harlem, Sharpton - speaking less than two hours after returning from his weeklong trip - said he wants to meet with Secretary of State Colin Powell and United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan to discuss ways to end the slave trade in Sudan, particularly by bringing pressure on oil companies who do business there.

Sharpton said oil companies should stop doing business in Sudan as long as the slave trade exists. If they continue, he said, they should be delisted from major stock exchanges.

Sharpton also said that, in addition to Powell and Annan, he plans to discuss the Sudan slave trade with black leaders including Nation of Islam chief Louis Farrakhan, who in the past denied the existence of slavery there, and the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

"Slavery anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere," Sharpton said.

During his trip, Sharpton met with and heard stories from a number of former slaves who had been purchased out of bondage by a Christian group.

-- Anonymous, April 15, 2001