Last week, CSI provided survival kits and food to 273 recently freed Black Sudanese slaves. The slaves were liberated and returned from Northern Sudan to three locations in the South – Malwal Kon, Turalei and Gok Machar – by the Sudanese Government’s Committee for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC).

The freed slaves were mainly women and children who had been captured by Sudanese government-backed Muslim militias during two decades of civil war. While in bondage many of the slaves were subjected to rape, frequent beatings, racial insults and forced conversions to Islam.

The slave repatriations took place between 31 January and 4 February. Sudanese government officials crammed the freed slaves into open-topped, seat-less trucks for a two-day drive in 100°F-plus heat. This small-scale repatriation was the first undertaken by the Sudanese government since last spring when more than 400 slaves were reportedly transported south.

CEAWC has recorded the names and locations of over 8,000 slaves who are waiting in Northern Sudan for repatriation. But CEAWC officials informed CSI that the Sudanese government had not yet released funds for further repatriations, and reported that the authorities in Khartoum seemed to have lost interest in the country’s slavery problem since the signing of the peace agreement with the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) in January 2005.

Notwithstanding the slow pace of CEAWC’s repatriation program and the continuing enslavement of Black Africans in Darfur and Equitoria, the U.S. Department of State rewarded the Sudanese Government for “significant efforts” to combat slavery, by elevating its slavery ranking from Tier III (the lowest level) to Tier II (the same level as Switzerland, Finland, Israel, Greece, Hungary and Chile).

The State Department justified this determination on the grounds of a Sudanese Ministry of Justice ruling. This ruling removed the requirement for rape victims to file a criminal report before seeking medical treatment. The overwhelming majority of female Sudanese slaves are in no position to get medical care or to file a criminal report. The State Department also cited promises made by the Sudanese government to take further anti-slavery action in 2006.

In a memorandum to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, dated October 11, 2005, five Sudan Campaign anti-slavery leaders concluded: “Raising Sudan from Tier III to Tier II was a grave error of judgement … based on dubious sources of information.” (The Hon. Walter Fauntroy, Joe Madison, Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group, Nina Shea of Freedom House, Faith McDonnell of the Institute for Religion and Democracy and John Eibner of CSI.)

CSI urges the Government of Sudan to intensify efforts to free and repatriate - in a humane fashion - all those still in bondage, and appeals to President George W. Bush to establish an independent commission to monitor the eradication of slavery in Sudan.