They marched in solemn procession through the streets of our towns and cities; religious leaders, foreign dignitaries, politicians and ordinary people compelled by conscience to mark the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in Britain.

Yet it was no great cause for celebration. Because slavery, in all its insidious modern guises, still exists around the world today.

William Wilberforce merely began the process of freedom. Two centuries later, the massive task of completing that process - removing the yokes and chains from millions still enslaved - remains.

Read the rest of the story in The Herald, on the 25th of March