Francis Bok had to keep quiet so that the soldiers wouldn’t kill him.

While at the market in Sudan to pick up eggs and beans for his mother, the 7-year-old was captured by Arab soldiers after they had slaughtered most of the children around him.

Fifteen years later, Bok stood behind a podium in Harris 107 to tell community members and Northwestern students that slavery did not end in 1865.

More than 60 people came to hear Bok speak Thursday about his escape from slavery after 10 years of being beaten every morning and treated “like an animal.”

The event originally was planned to include Charles Jacobs, the co-founder and president of the American Anti-Slavery Group. But Jacobs was unable to attend after being arrested earlier Thursday while protesting outside the Sudanse embassy.

Jay Williams, a 20-year-old Harvard student involved with the AASG, told the audience that the incident was a testament to the importance of the issue.

He urged students to “spread the word and let people know that in the year 2001, there are slaves and that we can’t rest until we use our freedom to bring freedom to these, our brothers and sisters who are enslaved throughout the world.”

Williams, who on a recent trip to Sudan helped free 4,435 slaves at $33 a person, said there are still 27 million slaves, all of whom are valued at less than the cost of a student’s night out.

He said that the slaves he witnessed had been “maimed, beaten, mutilated and violated in ways that we can’t even begin to think about.”

“My people are still dying,” said Bok, asking the audience to tell their pastors, rabbis, parents and friends that they can all make a difference. “My people are still slaves.”

Bok fled to Egypt at age 17 after two failed escapes in which he was nearly killed both times. He moved to Fargo, N.D., after seeking help from Cairo’s United Nations Refugee Office in August 1999. Since, he has helped the AASG raise awareness of slavery in Sudan and was the first escaped slave to speak on Capitol Hill.

“We’re all humans and we need freedom,” Bok said.

Williams said the Sudanese government’s reasons for promoting slavery were not economic and were instead related to the goal of achieving more total control over the country and its resources. He suggested that the reason the U.S. government was not stepping in could be related to Sudan’s massive supply of oil. Another product for which Sudan reaps great profits is a sweetener found in M&Ms and Minute Maid juices.

Speech junior Dan Birnbaum, the programming director of L’Chaim, a co-sponsor of the event, said he hoped the evening helped raise awareness that slavery still exists.

Education freshman Katie Pfohl said she was most disturbed that the problem wasn’t being dealt with on a wider scale. She said “the fact that this problem isn’t marketable or isn’t justified as an issue that the U.N. or the U.S. has to deal with is absolutely unacceptable.”