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<j.howarth@antislavery.org> According to the 1956 UN Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery "slavery" means the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching the right of ownership are exercised. The Congolese in the Congo Free State were coerced into producing raw rubber, under threat of whipping, amputation, or death of themselves or their relatives . The Congolese were not bought and sold but due to the terror tactics employed by Leopold's private army they did not have control over their labour. This was both slavery and forced labour, according to the 1930 ILO Convention on Forced Labour. The Congolese were victims of more, their villages were burnt and the population starved, with Hochschild estimating that approximately 10 million people died as a consequence of the brutal methods employed to extract the maximum labour from the population in the shortest period of time.
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