Slavery in contemporary Africa

It can be argued that Slavery in Africa continues today. Slavery existed in Africa before the arrival the Atlantic slave trade- as did a slave trade and an Arab slave trade. Despite being illegal in all African countries, slavery continues in parts of Africa and the rest of the world. Most of what is considered Slavery in Africa today is a symptom of poverty and economics and it may be controversial to refer to it as slavery in the same vain as the Atlantic slave trade or other comparable forms of Slavery.

Background and History

Modern slavery in Africa may be seen by some analyst as a continuation or outgrowth of slave-trading practices in the past but, in reality the situation is more complicated and requires an analysis of socioeconomic indicators as well as other economic issues. Modern day slavery in Africa is the contemporary trade or trafficking of enslaved people and according to the Anti-Slavery Society:

Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their "employers".

— Antislavery Society, What is Modern Slavery

Forced labor in Sub-Saharan Africa is estimated at 660,000 (5%). This includes people involved in the illegal diamond mines of Sierra Leon and Liberia, which is also a direct result of the civil war in these regions.

Types of Modern day slavery

Sex Based Trade

While institutional slavery has been banned worldwide, but there are numerous reports of women sex slaves in areas without an effective government control, such as Sudan,South Africa and Liberia, Sierra Leone, northern Uganda, Congo, Niger and Mauritania. In Ghana, Togo, and Benin, a form of religious prostitution known as trokosi ("ritual servitude") forcibly keeps thousands of girls and women in traditional shrines as "wives of the gods", where priests perform the sexual function in place of the gods.

Women seeking refugee status in South Africa from other African countries are trafficked by refugees already from their countries already living there. An estimated 1000 Mozambican girls are trafficked to Johannesburg each year and sold as sex slaves or as wives to the Mozambican mine workers. Young women have been trafficked from Thailand and China to South Africa. When identified by police in South Africa victims of trafficking are deported as illegal immigrants. Victims are afraid of law enforcement and do not trust the police to assist them. South Africa has no public services specifically designed to assist victims of trafficking.Trafficking in South Africa appears to be closely linked with the highly sophisticated global sex industry.

Forced labor

Forced labour is defined as any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form of punishment. Forced labor was used to an overwhelming extent in King Leopold's Congo Free State and on Portuguese plantations of Cape Verde and San Tome. Today in the Democratic Republic of the Congo the indigenous people are usually victims of their Bantu neighbors, who have replaced the positions once held by Europeans.

"We must work for the Bantu masters. We cannot refuse to do so because we are likely to be beaten or be victims of insults and threats. Even though we agree to work all day in the fields, we are still asked to work even more, for example, to fetch firewood or go hunting. Most of the time, they pay us in kind, a worn loincloth for 10 workdays. We cannot refuse because we do not have a choice.”.

— Antislavery Society, Interview with an indigenous man in the Congo

Child slave trade

The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin. The children are kidnapped or purchased for $20 – $70 each by slavers in poorer states, such as Benin and Togo, and sold into slavery in sex dens or as unpaid domestic servants for $350.00 each in wealthier oil-rich states, such as Nigeria and Gabon.

Ritual Slavery

Main article: Ritual Servitude

Ritual servitude (Trokosi)is a practice in Ghana, Togo, and Benin where traditional religious shrines take human beings, usually young virgin girls in payment for services, or in religious atonement for alleged misdeeds of a family member — almost always a female. In Ghana and in Togo, it is practiced by the Ewe people in the Volta region, and in Benin it is practiced by the Fon.

Slavery by Country

South Africa

Despite significant efforts made by the South African Government to combat trafficking in persons the country has been placed on the “Tier 2 Watch List” by the US Department of Trafficking in Persons,for the past four years. South Africa shares borders with Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland. It has 72 official ports of entry "and a number of unofficial ports of entry where people come in and out without being detected" along its 5 000 km-long land borderline. The problem of porous borders is compounded by the lack of adequately trained employees, resulting in few police officials controlling large portions of the country's coastline.

Ethiopia

Mahider Bitew, Children's Rights and Protection expert at the Ministry of Women's Affairs, says that some remote studies conducted in Dire Dawa, Shashemene, Awassa, and three other towns of the country indicate that the problem of child trafficking is very serious. According to a 2003 study, about one thousand children were trafficked via Dire Dawa to countries of the Middle East. The majority of those children were girls, most of whom were forced to be prostitutes after leaving the country. The International Labor Organization has identified prostitution as the Worst Form of Child Labor.

In Ethiopia, children are trafficked into prostitution, to provide cheap or unpaid labor, and to work as domestic servants or beggars. The ages of these children are usually between 10 and 18, and their trafficking is from the country to urban centers and from cities to the country. Boys are often expected to work in activities such as herding cattle in rural areas and in the weaving industry in Addis Ababa and other major towns. Girls are expected to take responsibilities for domestic chores, childcare, and looking after the sick, and to work as prostitutes.

Chad

IRIN (Integrated Regional Information Networks) of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports children being sold to Arab herdsmen in Chad. As part of a new identity imposed on them the herdsmen "...change their name, forbid them to speak in their native dialect, ban them from conversing with people from their own ethnic group and make them adopt Islam as their religion."

Mali

The Malian government denies that slavery exists but, some believe Slavery still continues as a reflection of the poverty in Mali.

Mauritania

Main article: Slavery in Mauritania

A system exists now by which Arab Muslims -- the bidanes—own black slaves, the haratines. An estimated 90,000 black Mauritanians remain essentially enslaved to Arab/Berber owners. The ruling bidanes (the name means literally white-skinned people) are descendants of the Sanhaja Berbers and Beni Hassan Arab tribes who emigrated to northwest Africa and present-day Western Sahara and Mauritania during the Middle Ages. According to some estimates, up to 600,000 black Mauritanians, or 20% of the population, are still enslaved, many of them used as bonded labour. Slavery in Mauritania was criminalized in August 2007. Malouma Messoud, a former Muslim slave has explained her enslavement to a religious leader:

"We didn't learn this history in school; we simply grew up within this social hierarchy and lived it. Slaves believe that if they do not obey their masters, they will not go to paradise. They are raised in a social and religious system that everyday reinforces this idea."

In Mauritania, despite slave ownership having been banned by law in 1981, hereditary slavery continues. Moreover, according to Amnesty International:

"Not only has the government denied the existence of slavery and failed to respond to cases brought to its attention, it has hampered the activities of organisations which are working on the issue, including by refusing to grant them official recognition".

Imam El Hassan Ould Benyamin of Tayarat in 1997 expressed his views about earlier proclamations ending slavery in his country as follows:

"[it] is contrary to the teachings of the fundamental text of Islamic law, the Quran ... [and] amounts to the expropriation from Muslims of their goods; goods that were acquired legally. The state, if it is Islamic, does not have the right to seize my house, my wife or my slave."

Sudan

Main article: Slavery in Sudan

Sudan has seen a resurgence of slavery since 1983, associated with the Second Sudanese Civil War.

In the Sudan, Christian and animist captives in the civil war are often enslaved, and female prisoners are often used sexually, with their Muslim captors claiming that Islamic law grants them permission. According to CBS news, slaves have been sold for $50 apiece. In 2001, CNN reported that the Bush administration was under pressure from Congress, including conservative Christians concerned about religious oppression and slavery, to address issues involved in the Sudanese conflict. CNN has also quoted the U.S. State Department's allegations: "The [Sudanese] government's support of slavery and its continued military action which has resulted in numerous deaths are due in part to the victims' religious beliefs."

Jok Madut Jok, professor of History at Loyola Marymount University, states that the abduction of women and children of the south by north is slavery by any definition. The government of Sudan insists that the whole matter is no more than the traditional tribal feuding over resources.

It is estimated that as many as 200,000 people had been taken into slavery during the Second Sudanese Civil War.

Ghana, Togo, Benin

In parts of Ghana among the Ewe people, a family may be punished for an offense by having to turn over a virgin female to serve as a sex slave within the offended family. In this instance, the woman does not gain the title of "wife". In parts of Ghana, Togo, and Benin, shrine slavery persists, despite being illegal in Ghana since 1998. This system of slavery is sometimes called trokosi (in Ghana), or voodoosi in Togo and Benin, or ritual servitude. Young virgin girls are given as slaves in traditional shrines and are used sexually by the priests, in addition to providing free labor for the shrine.

The organization "Free The Slaves" organized an event in Ghana against Slavery in June 2010. especially against child slaves.

See also

• African slave trade
• Atlantic slave trade
• Arab slave trade
• Child labour
• Christianity and slavery
• History of slavery
• Human trafficking
• Islam and slavery
• Maafa
• Ritual servitude
• Slavery
• Unfree labour

External links

• The Modern West African Slave Trade Anti-Slavery Society. Accessed 2007-07-09.