Slavery in contemporary Africa
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Africa has a long history of slavery. Slavery proably existed there even before there was writing. Even today, it is one of the regions affected by contemporary slavery.[1] The slave trade intensified with the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trade[2][3] and again with the trans-Atlantic slave trade;[4] Because there was a high demand for slaves, this created a number of kingdoms in the Sahel-zone. These kingdoms were at war with each other all the time, as this was the only way to get prisoners of war, which could be turned into slaves to be exported.[5] During the age of colonialism in Africa, in the 18th and 19th centuries,as well as the early 20th century, these patterns continued.[6] The colonial authorities tried to stop slavery, starting from about 1900, but they were not very successful. After decolonization, slavery continued in many parts of Africa even though it is technically illegal.[7]
Slavery in the Sahel region and the Horn of Africa exists along racial and cultural boundaries: There are Arabized Berbers in the north, and darker Africans in the south.[8]
In the Sahel states of Mauritania, Mali, Niger, Chad and Sudan there is a concept called hereditary servitude: One family serves another family. This is passed on from the parents to the children. The pattern is centuries old, and slavery can make use of it.[9] Other forms of slavery exist in parts of Ghana, Benin, Togo and Nigeria.[10] Other forms of slavery in Africa involve human trafficking, the recruiting or enslavement of child soldiers and child labourers. Human trafficking occurs in Togo, and children are trafficked from Togo, Benin and Nigeria to Gabon and Cameroon. [11][12]
According to the Anti-Slavery-Society, modern day slavery in Africa means that whole groups of people are exploited, even when this is not called "slavery". [13][14][15]
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[16] is estimated at 660,000.[17] This includes people involved in the illegal diamond mines of Sierra Leone and Liberia, which is also a direct result of the civil wars in these regions.[18] In 2017, the International Labour Office estimated that 7 in every 1,000 people in Africa are victims of slavery.[19]
Types of contemporary slavery[change | change source]
Sex trade[change | change source]
While institutional slavery has been banned worldwide, there are many reports of female sex slaves in areas without an effective government control, such as Sudan and Liberia,[20] Sierra Leone,[21] northern Uganda,[22] Congo,[23] Niger[24] and Mauritania.[25] In Ghana, Togo, and Benin, a form of (forced) 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.[26]
Forced labour[change | change source]
Forced labor, which can be different from slavery,[27] is defined as any work or services which people are forced to do against their will under the threat of some form of punishment. 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 Arabs and Europeans.[18][28]
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[change | change source]
The trading of children has been reported in modern Nigeria and Benin.[29] 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 each in wealthier oil-rich states, such as Nigeria and Gabon.[30][31][32]
In April 2014, Boko Haram kidnapped 276 female students from Chibok, Borno.[33] More than 50 of them soon escaped, but the others have not been released. Instead, the leader of Boko Haram, Abubakar Shekau, announced his intention of selling them into slavery.[34]
Ritual slavery[change | change source]
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.[35][unreliable source?] 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.[36]
References[change | change source]
- ↑ Kusi, David K. (2000). Africa, One Continent and Many Religions: Towards Interreligious Dialogue in Africa (Thesis). Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN). doi:10.2986/tren.033-0550.
- ↑ "Brazil and the slave trade, 1827–1839", The Abolition of the Brazilian Slave Trade, Cambridge University Press, pp. 62–87, 1970-03-01, doi:10.1017/cbo9780511759734.005, ISBN 978-0-521-07583-1
- ↑ Zink, Robert James. (1969). "Uhuru wa Watumwa" as a documentary of the Arab slave trade in East Africa. OCLC 792751768.
- ↑ Green, Toby (2011), "Rethinking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from a Cultural Perspective", The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–28, doi:10.1017/cbo9781139016407.003, ISBN 978-1-139-01640-7
- ↑ "The Origins of Slaves Leaving West Central Africa", The Atlantic Slave Trade from West Central Africa, 1780–1867, Cambridge University Press, pp. 73–99, 2017-06-26, doi:10.1017/9781316771501.005, ISBN 978-1-316-77150-1
- ↑ Allen, Richard B. (2017-03-29), "Asian Indentured Labor in the 19th and Early 20th Century Colonial Plantation World", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.33, ISBN 978-0-19-027772-7
- ↑ "Which Way Africa-Towards Africa-Exit from Colonial Empire?", Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire, Langaa RPCIG, pp. 443–495, 2017-12-17, doi:10.2307/j.ctvh9vtjn.13, ISBN 978-9956-764-22-8
- ↑ "The mobilization of local ideas about racial difference has been important in generating, and intensifying, civil wars that have occurred since the end of colonial rule in all of the countries that straddle the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. ... contemporary conflicts often hearken back to an older history in which blackness could be equated with slavery and non-blackness with predatory and uncivilized banditry." (cover text), Hall, Bruce S., A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
- ↑ "Chad-Mali-Mauritania-Niger-Senegal-Upper Volta: Convention Establishing a Permanent Inter-State Drought Control Committee for the Sahel". International Legal Materials. 13 (3): 537–539. 1974. doi:10.1017/s002078290004568x. S2CID 249000440.
- ↑ de Ste Croix, G. E. M. (1988), "Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour", Abingdon, UK: Taylor & Francis, pp. 19–32, doi:10.4324/9780203401514_chapter_one, ISBN 978-0-203-33181-1
{{citation}}: Missing or empty|title=(help) - ↑ "news-from-human-rights-watch-vol-l5-no8a-borderline-slavery-child-trafficking-in-togo-april-2003-84-pp". Human Rights Documents Online. doi:10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-2156-0326.
- ↑ "Traditional Slavery in Niger", Anti-Slavery International, Society's Secretary-General broadcast on the ABC on 9 March 2005 at 9.30 pm.
- ↑ Washington, Booker T. (4 January 2020). Up from slavery. Magdalene Press. ISBN 978-1-77335-133-9. OCLC 1141252700.
- ↑ Brace, Laura (2018-03-01), "Glimpses of Slavery", The Politics of Slavery, Edinburgh University Press, doi:10.3366/edinburgh/9781474401142.003.0010, ISBN 978-1-4744-0114-2
- ↑ Allain, Jean (2015-01-01), "When Forced Marriage is Slavery", The Law and Slavery, Brill–Nijhoff, pp. 466–474, doi:10.1163/9789004279896_022, ISBN 978-90-04-27989-6
- ↑ Bratton, Michael (2009-01-29), "22. Sub-Saharan Africa", Democratization, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/hepl/9780199233021.003.0022, ISBN 978-0-19-923302-1
- ↑ "Workers' Alliance against Forced Labour and Trafficking - ITUC" (PDF). Retrieved 2015-10-14.
- ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Forced Labour". London: Anti-Slavery International. Archived from the original on 2016-12-04. Retrieved 2015-10-14.
- ↑ Ukomadu, Angela; Chile, Nneka (7 August 2019). "West African slavery lives on, 400 years after transatlantic trade began". Reuters. Retrieved 8 August 2019.
- ↑ "Liberia's Taylor appears in court". BBC News (3 July 2007). Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ↑ "Sierra Leone: Sexual Violence Widespread in War". Human Rights Watch. Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ↑ "Uganda: No Amnesty for Atrocities" Archived 2008-11-03 at the Wayback Machine. Human Rights Watch.org (4 March 2011). Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ↑ "Latest North San Diego County headlines". U-T San Diego. Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ↑ Andersson, Hilary. (11 February 2005) "Born to be a slave in Niger". BBC News. Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ↑ "Mauritanian MPs pass slavery law". BBC News (9 August 2007). Retrieved 2011-03-08.
- ↑ Hawksley, Humphrey (8 February 2001). "Ghana's trapped slaves". BBC News.
- ↑ Brachet, Julien; Scheele, Judith (2022). "Captives at Large: On the Political Economy of Human Containment in the Sahara". Politics & Society. 50 (2): 255–278. doi:10.1177/00323292211014373. S2CID 236365246.
- ↑ Boddy-Evans, Alistair (20 June 2019). "Types of Enslavement in Africa and the World Today". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 29 April 2022.
- ↑ "AFRICA – West Africa's child slave trade". Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ↑ "9. The Well-Being of Purchased Female Domestic Servants (Mui Tsai) in Hong Kong in the Early Twentieth Century", Children in Slavery through the Ages, Ohio University Press, pp. 152–166, 2009, doi:10.1353/chapter.258114, ISBN 978-0-8214-4339-2
- ↑ "West is master of slave trade guilt". The Australian. Archived from the original on 13 June 2007. Retrieved 2015-10-14.
- ↑ "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery – Nigeria". Retrieved 8 May 2015.
- ↑ "Nigeria: Government Still Failing Victims of Boko Haram Four Years On From Chibok". Human Rights Documents Online. doi:10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-9211-20181220.
- ↑ Nwankpa, Michael; Shekau, Abubakar (2018-07-01), "Boko Haram State (2013–2015)", The Boko Haram Reader, Oxford University Press, pp. 285–288, doi:10.1093/oso/9780190908300.003.0081, ISBN 978-0-19-090830-0
- ↑ "Female Ritual Servitude". CBE International. Archived from the original on 2020-11-26. Retrieved 2020-05-28.
- ↑ FAQ About the Form of Slavery Called Trokosi, ECM Publications, 2002, p. 1
