51 Black Sudanese Slaves Freed

(Washington, Sept. 14, 2006) Last week, 51 Black Sudanese slaves, including six babies, were freed from Arab masters and returned to Southern Sudan. The liberation action was supported by CSI, the state government of North Bahr El Ghazal and the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee of Manger Ater.

Interviews with freed slaves over the age of 8 revealed that 89% were forcibly Islamized in childhood by their masters. The attempt to change their cultural identity was in all cases accompanied by inhumane methods of inducing submission, among them beatings, death threats, and racial and religious insults. 17 reported that they witnessed the execution of slaves who failed to submit to Muslim masters.

For example, 25-year old Deng Wol (renamed Mohammed Abdelrahman by his master) reported that he was socially isolated, called “kafir” (infidel) and was stabbed in the abdomen in the process of becoming a Muslim. His Muslim supremacist Koranic school teacher promised him a better life as a Muslim. Upon submitting to Islam, Deng was taught that if he shared a bowl of food with a non-Muslim, blood would ooze from the fingers of the infidel and pollute the meal.

Eight of the 12 females over the age of 14 admitted to having been raped while in bondage. One young mother, Ajok Madwak (renamed Howah), was raped by visitors to the home of her master, Khalid Bashir. Ajok said she did not know whether he received money from his guests, but she assumed he was exploiting her as a prostitute. Ajok bears a scar on her right jaw, the result of a beating during a gang rape.

Most of the freed slaves had been captured by Arab Islamic militias of the Government of Sudan during the 22-year North-South civil war (1982-2005), while the babies were born in bondage.

Tens of thousands of Black slaves from Southern Sudan are still believed to be the property of masters in Northern Sudan, notwithstanding the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) signed between the government in Khartoum and the Southern-based Sudan People’s Liberation Army in January 2005. The CPA failed to establish a mechanism for the emancipation of slaves. Meanwhile, Black women and children continue to be abducted and enslaved in the war-torn northern region of Darfur.

CSI supports the appeal of the Sudanese government minister Bona Malwal for the establishment in Khartoum of a financially transparent emancipation commission, made up equally of representatives of the communities victimized by slavery, international NGOs and the Sudanese government.

CSI also backs legislation, introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in July by Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), for the establishment of an independent commission in Washington to monitor the eradication of slavery in Sudan.

Slavery is an internationally recognized crime against humanity. For over a decade, CSI has been in the forefront of the campaign against Sudanese slavery.