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As often as I could when I visited the old Baptist Union offices in central London, I’d stand before a display case which both appalled me, and, I confess, made me just a little proud. It contained a set of shackles taken from a slave freed in the West Indies. It was a shocking symbol of a barbaric practice. But it also reminded me that fellow-Baptists had helped to end it, and it was good to be linked, however indirectly, to those involved in ridding the world of a great evil.

And then I discovered that the Anti-Slavery Society, founded in the 1830s, was still in business; and at its headquarters I found not only many more chains and shackles, but documents testifying to contemporary abuse - families sold into bonded labour; children of three forced to work; young men and girls snatched, bribed or lied to in order to ship them into the sex trade, or other forms of servitude. The slavery I naively thought had been banished from the earth had simply assumed different guises.

A global survey published this week reckons that nearly thirty million people are living as slaves in 162 countries. At the most conservative estimate, four thousand are in the UK, many trafficked here, a catalogue of human misery, most of it hidden, for this is an evil of the shadows, from which people are afraid to speak.

It’s right that we are still shocked, that support agencies get the help they need, that appropriate laws are implemented.

Not least because it’s dangerous to presume that accepted wisdom will always prevail. Not everyone believes that slavery is wrong - traffickers for instance, those who keep their domestic servants locked up, the clients of sex workers, the owners of sweat shops - and maybe we don’t, when we knowingly go for the cheapest product on the shelves, no questions asked.

Every religious tradition affirms that people can indeed change. The Christian gospel points to the possibility of radical transformation with Jesus Christ, seeing others as God sees them, and treating them appropriately. And societies can change - every major reform, worked for by people of all faiths and none, is inspired by the possibility of making lasting difference.

But who thought fascism would be seen again on European streets? Or that the use of torture, outlawed by generations of international agreement, would be tolerated by governments as a regrettable necessity?

Many battles need to be re-fought in every generation, the arguments made again. William Wilberforce told his supporters, ‘Our motto must continue to be perseverance. And ultimately I trust the Almighty will crown our efforts with success.’ He’d already been campaigning against slavery for 44 years when he said that. And the fight still isn’t over.

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