Niger: New slavery study welcomed by human rights experts

People are still enslaved in Niger, but an announcement that the government has agreed to sponsor an independent investigation into the issue has raised hopes for change among some human rights experts. Lompo Garba, president of the National Commission for Human Rights and Civil Liberties, the group conducting the new study, said: "Slavery as it was in the past in Niger, for example people owned by other people, no longer exists.