Speaker: Professor Gaim Kibreab, Research Professor and Course Director at London South Bank University, School of Law and Social Sciences in the Department of Social Science. 

Discussant: Professor John Campbell, Reader in the Anthropology of Africa and Law at SOAS.

Summary: The Eritrean National Service (ENS) lies at the core of the post-independence state, not only supplying its military, but affecting every aspect of the country's economy, its social services, its public sector and its politics. Over half the workforce are forcibly enrolled into it by the government, driving the country's youth to escape national service by seeking employment and asylum elsewhere. Yet how did the ENS, which began during the 1961-91 liberation struggle as part of the idea of the "common good" - in which individual interests were sacrificed in pursuit of the grand scheme of independence and the country's development - degenerate into forced labour and a modern form of slavery? And why, when Eritrea no longer faces existential threat, does the government continue to demand such service from its citizens?

Biographies:  

Gaim Kibreab is Professor of Research and Director of Refugee Studies, School of Law and Social Science, London South Bank University. He is the author of  Eritrea: A dream deferred  (James Currey, 2009) and  People on the edge of the horn (James Currey, 1996).He earned a PhD degree from Uppsala University, Sweden, Faculty of Social Sciences/Institute of Economic History.

John Campbell has worked extensively overseas in various research teaching and development capacities and He has have undertaken consultancies in development for international organization. Prof Campbell has also been directly involved in development projects and programs, particularly in Ethiopia, where he devised and managed a major slum-upgrading project in Addis Ababa.