Nobel laureate and renowned Nigerian playwright Professor Wole Soyinka has argued that elements of the slave trade persist in modern forms across Africa, citing the kidnapping and trafficking of children and young people into what he described as contemporary slave markets.

Speaking at the opening of the Next Steps Conference on Reparatory Justice in Accra on Thursday, June 18, 2026, Prof. Soyinka said discussions on reparations must also confront ongoing forms of human exploitation on the continent.

“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.”

Prof. Soyinka said the abduction of schoolchildren and young people for trafficking shows that slavery has not been eradicated, despite the formal abolition of the transatlantic slave trade.

“I refer to the kidnapping of school children who were sent to these institutions of learning and who end up being kidnapped because there are ready markets for them,” he said.

“Ultimately, these victims, these kidnapped victims are being sent through special channels to the slave markets of this continent.”

Drawing on experiences from his native Nigeria, Soyinka said authorities have undertaken efforts to rescue citizens from trafficking networks operating across the region.

“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 said.

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 a point of telling my audience that the slave trade is not over, but it is indeed very active,” he said.

“Even as I speak now, we have children, youths, school children, who are being held in forest fastnesses destined for the slave markets.”

Soyinka also criticised countries that have opposed or dismissed calls for reparatory justice, arguing that contemporary forms of exploitation reinforce 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 said.

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.