The British politicians explored the museum, which confronts the region’s experience with slavery and its relevance to modern-day forms of slavery and discrimination.

A delegation of British parliamentarians visited Msheireb Museums’ Bin Jelmood House for a guided tour.

MPs from across the British political spectrum — including the Conservative Party’s Alun Cairns, the Shadow Minister of Housing and Communities, Florence Eshalomi, the Official Spokesman of the Scottish National Party, Chris Law as well as the Labour Party’s Marsha de Cordova — emersed themselves in the museum’s wealth of narratives to discover.

Bin Jelmood House stands testament to Qatar’s commitment to raising awareness about past and present human exploitation.

Travelling back in time, the museum unpacks the region’s experience of 8th-century Indian Ocean slavery; providing a platform for interrogating our understanding of the slave trade and discrimination as a whole.

Among those facilitating the tour was Fahad Al Turky, who is Msheireb Museums’ Exhibitions and Public Programmes Manager.

“Slavery was abolished in Qatar in 1952, so it’s quite a recent history,” Al Turky told local media in 2022.

In her 2020 report on contemporary forms of racism, E. Tendayi Achiume, a former United Nations Special Rapporteur, highlighted Msheireb Museums as the world’s first institution dedicated to the history of enslaved persons in the Indian Ocean trade.

“The Special Rapporteur wishes to commend the museum for the powerful and crucial contribution to Qatar and the world more broadly,” the report said, lauding the museum.

In light of her report, Al Turky added that “in many ways, this isn’t just about history — we can situate this topic in the wider context of modern-day slavery and racism.”

He also said that the Msheireb Museums’ strives to positively contribute to eradicating discrimination in all its forms.