Human Trafficking in  [Sudan]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Sudan]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Sudan]  [other countries]
 

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Republic of Sudan                                                                      [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Republic of Sudan is located in NE Africa [map] and is bordered by Egypt (N), by the Red Sea (NE), by Eritrea and Ethiopia (E), by Kenya, Uganda, and Congo (Kinshasa) (S), by the Central African Republic and Chad (W), and by Libya (NW).  Khartoum is its capital and Omdurman is its largest city.  The situation of children and women in the Sudan continues to be negatively affected by the civil war.  The fighting caused large-scale human displacements, destroyed infrastructure, eroded coping mechanisms, and resulted in human rights violations.  Second-tier conflicts have proliferated, many of them land-related or inter-tribal or due to competition over resources.  An estimated 4 million people were displaced from their homes.

Sudan is a source country for men, women, and children trafficked internally for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Sudan is also a transit and destination country for Ethiopian women trafficked abroad for domestic servitude. Sudanese women and girls are trafficked within the country, as well as possibly to Middle Eastern countries such as Qatar, for domestic servitude. In 2007, Greek law enforcement authorities identified a female sex trafficking victim from Sudan. The terrorist rebel organization, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), continues to harbor small numbers of Sudanese and Ugandan children in the southern part of the country for use as cooks, porters, and combatants; some of these children are also trafficked across borders into Uganda or the Democratic Republic of the Congo. In March 2007, six Sudanese girls were abducted by the LRA near Maridi, Western Equatoria. Sudanese children are unlawfully conscripted, at times through abduction, and utilized by armed rebel groups—including all SLA factions, the Popular Defense Forces, Janjaweed militia, and Chadian opposition forces—in Sudan’s ongoing conflict in Darfur; the Sudanese Armed Forces and associated militias also continue to exploit young children in this region. There were confirmed reports of unlawful child recruitment in mid-2007 by the JEM/Peace Wing among communities of internally displaced persons in Dereig, South Darfur. Militia groups in Darfur, some of which are linked to the government, abduct women for short periods of forced labor and to perpetrate sexual violence. Forcible recruitment of adults and particularly children by virtually all armed groups involved in Sudan’s concluded north-south civil war was commonplace; thousands of children still associated with these forces await demobilization and reintegration into their communities of origin. In addition to the exploitation of children by armed groups during the two decades-long north-south civil war, thousands of Dinka women and children were abducted and subsequently enslaved by members of the Missiriya and Rezeigat tribes during this time. An unknown number of children from the Nuba tribe were similarly abducted and enslaved. A portion of those who were abducted and enslaved remained with their abductors in South Darfur and West Kordofan and experienced varying types of treatment; others were sold or given to third parties, including in other regions of the country; and some ultimately escaped from their captors. While there have been no known new abductions of Dinka by members of Baggara tribes in the last few years, inter-tribal abductions continue in southern Sudan, especially in Jonglei and Eastern Equatoria states.   - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008  [full country report]

 

 

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Sudan.  Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to verify their authenticity or to validate their content.

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880 Sudanese Slaves Liberated - Thousands Remain Enslaved in Darfur, Kordofan

Most of the returning slaves documented by CSI reported gross abuse by their Arab Muslim masters. Among the most widespread forms of abuse are beatings, death threats, work without pay, forced Islamization and Arabization, and racial and religious slurs. The majority of women and older girls said they were raped or gang-raped while in bondage. A minority of the females claim they were subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) — a ritual that is the cultural norm for Baggara Arab women.

From Slavery to Freedom...Please read

Bok said he was captured by the raiders and, along with two little girls, was placed on a donkey and carted north. "The girls were crying, and when they did not stop after being told to do so, a soldier pulled out his pistol and shot one of them," he said. "The other girl kept crying, and then he shot her."

Bok was taken to Kirio, he said, where he was given to an Arab man, who presented him to the entire household. They all beat him. "They always called me 'abeed,' which means black slave, and I had to sleep with the cows," he said, adding that he was always fed leftovers from the master's table.

Sudan's Slaves

Women and children abducted in slave raids are roped by the neck or strapped to animals and then marched north. Along the way, many women and girls are repeatedly gang-raped. Children who will not be silent are shot on the spot. In the north, slaves are either kept by individual militia soldiers or sold in markets. Boys work as livestock herders, forced to sleep with the animals they care for.

"Some who try to escape have their Achilles tendons cut to hamper their ability to run. Masters typically use women and girls as domestics and concubines, cleaning by day and serving the master sexually by night. Survivors report being called "Abeed" (black slave), enduring daily beatings, and receiving awful food. Masters also strip slaves of their religious and cultural identities, giving them Arabic names and forcing them to pray as Muslims."

Young Boy Slaves Gang-Raped In Sudan

During a recent fact finding trip to Southern Sudan, Freedom Now World News discovered overwhelming evidence that young black, boy slaves are repeatedly gang-raped by their Arab masters. While previous reports on slavery have focused mainly on the gang-rape of female slaves, sociologist and investigative reporter, Maria Sliwa received testimony from numerous boy victims of rape.

Many of the redeemed slaves told Sliwa that in order to avoid rape, male slaves would try to escape but were hunted down like animals by their masters. The punishment for resisting rape is often severe beatings, death or limb amputation.

 

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Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – There were no informed estimates on the extent of trafficking, either for jockeys or for sexual exploitation. There were credible reports that tribal leaders with government connections transported children to the Persian Gulf to be used as jockeys in camel races or as laborers. Despite the absence of a signed agreement with the government, UNICEF cooperated with the government to repatriate child camel jockeys and indicated that 16 children had been repatriated since May. More than 300 children were repatriated from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar through the combined efforts of governments and NGOs.

There were credible reports that intertribal abductions of women and children continued in the South. Victims frequently became part of the new tribal family, with most women marrying into the new tribe; however, some victims were used for labor or sexual purposes. As intertribal fighting in the South decreased, the number of abductions also appeared to decline. The government acknowledged that abductions occurred and that abductees were sometimes forced into domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. The CEAWC and its 22 joint tribal committees investigated abduction cases and sought to facilitate the safe return of victims. CEAWC did not pursue legal action against abductors. CEAWC reported that since 1999, 1,354 abductees were reunited with their families. Credible sources noted that some of the CEAWC-facilitated reunions were forced repatriations of persons over age 18 against the wishes of the abductees.

During the past 20 years, the LRA kidnapped more than 20 thousand Ugandan children, took them back to the southern part of the country, and forced them to become sex slaves, pack animals, or soldiers. Many of the victims were killed. The LRA also abducted citizens while raiding towns in the South. According to SPLM/A officials, on November 21, suspected LRA rebels abducted 11 people in Western Equatoria and were suspected of killing 5 civilians and abducting 25 persons near Maridi. The government permitted the Ugandan army access to the South to pursue the LRA. Although Ugandan military operations significantly reduced LRA numbers, the LRA continued to operate in the South and to hold child abductees; such LRA attacks restricted humanitarian activities.

Concluding Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 2002

[61] The Committee welcomes the work of the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children. However, it remains concerned that the State party's legislation does not adequately prohibit slavery or sanction those engaged in it and that thousands of children have been abducted and enslaved in the context of the armed conflict as well as for commercial gain (i.e. sold as servants, agricultural laborers and concubines, or forcibly recruited as soldiers).

Sudanese children abducted for fighting and sex-UN

Children in Sudan, especially in the Darfur region, continue to be abducted for use in battle, forced labour or sexual exploitation, a U.N. human rights body said on Friday.  The U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child called on the Khartoum government to intensify its efforts to prevent children being abducted and to help reunify victims with their families.  - htsccp

Activists ‘Outraged’ over Upgrading Status of Sudan

“The government of Sudan is directly linked to an unprecedented revival of slavery in modern times, as confirmed by the U. S. government-sponsored ‘International Eminent Persons Group on Slavery, Abduction and Southern Sudan to Darfur,’” the group writes to Rice. “As the focus of the Sudanese government’s war policy shifted two years ago from Southern Sudan to Darfur, it continued to provide support for the militia that enslave Black women and children.”

U.S. Government's Elevation of Sudan's Slavery Status Challenged

A State Department memorandum justifying the Presidential Determination, dated 21 September, claims that the Government of Sudan has made "significant efforts" to bring itself into compliance with U.S. anti-trafficking legislation. The head of the State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking (TIP), Ambassador John Miller, reported on September 27 that Sudan and five other countries had taken "real steps" to combat slavery, including:  Establishing new police anti-trafficking units, arresting and charging traffickers, passing anti-trafficking laws, opening victims shelters, holding bilateral meetings to establish anti-trafficking cooperation, and establishing victims hotlines.

Neither the TIP office, nor the Sudanese government, however, has been able to provide details of such alleged measures.

A Hero in Hell. Former Drug Dealer Frees Abducted Child Soldiers in Sudan and Uganda

The children of the LRA perform these acts at the bidding of their adult counterparts and make up about 80 percent of the rebel group, according to the United Nations. The LRA has kidnapped more than 20,000 children since 1988 and today its captives constitute the largest army of child soldiers in Africa.

For Sudan Slaves, Freedom at a Cost

The map of Majok’s life is carved on his body in scars. They trace the vicious beatings, his castration, the time he was left hanging by a rope around his neck. But grief and trauma have erased nearly every other scrap of his boyhood story.

880 Sudanese Slaves Liberated - Thousands Remain Enslaved in Darfur, Kordofan

Most of the returning slaves documented by CSI reported gross abuse by their Arab Muslim masters. Among the most widespread forms of abuse are beatings, death threats, work without pay, forced Islamization and Arabization, and racial and religious slurs. The majority of women and older girls said they were raped or gang-raped while in bondage. A minority of the females claim they were subjected to female genital mutilation (FGM) — a ritual that is the cultural norm for Baggara Arab women.

Child Camel Jockeys Find Hope

Children from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sudan are still being smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as camel jockeys, despite a law passed two years ago banning their use.  It is not uncommon for child jockeys to fall off and be injured while racing, and their illegal status means race track owners are often reluctant to take them to hospital.  Instead, says Ansar Burney, the boys often arrive with broken hands or broken legs. And many, he says, have been sodomized.

Refugee From Sudan Tells Of Enslavement

Deng was given as a gift to an Arab family, and he had no chance of trying to escape in a predominantly Arab town.  "We were treated like animals," Deng said.

Sudanese plead for U.S. help

Abuk Bak was 10 when the Arab militia came for the farm animals her family raised.  They attacked her village in southern Sudan, killing men and taking women and children on an all-day hike.  The next day, a man took Bak as his slave.

From Slavery to Freedom...Please read

Bok said he was captured by the raiders and, along with two little girls, was placed on a donkey and carted north. "The girls were crying, and when they did not stop after being told to do so, a soldier pulled out his pistol and shot one of them," he said. "The other girl kept crying, and then he shot her."

Bok was taken to Kirio, he said, where he was given to an Arab man, who presented him to the entire household. They all beat him. "They always called me 'abeed,' which means black slave, and I had to sleep with the cows," he said, adding that he was always fed leftovers from the master's table.

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 7   Civil Liberties: 7   Status: Not Free

Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide

U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study

Black Sudanese Slaves Liberated

The 191 freed slaves, mainly women and children, had been captured during Sudanese government-sponsored raids against Black African villages in Southern Sudan. They had been forced to serve Baggara Arab masters living in Northern Sudan, especially Darfur and neighboring Kordofan.

Slave interviews confirm a pattern of severe physical and psychological abuse. Freed female slaves claimed to have been raped and subjected to genital mutilation (FGM). Some freed boy slaves also reported having been raped by masters.

Sudanese Slave 'Crucified' by his Master Not Unusual in Central African Nation

"After brutally beating Joseph on the head and all over his body, the master laid him out on a wooden plank. He then nailed Joseph to the plank by driving nine-inch nails through his hands, knees and feet. He then poured acid on Joseph's legs to inflict even greater pain, and finally left him for dead."

Uganda: Forgotten crisis or global cover-up?

The Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), a rebel group and religious sect, has been terrorising northern Uganda for years, uprooting almost the entire population of Acholiland, kidnapping children to camps in southern Sudan and forcing them to become fighters and sex slaves.

Mende Nazer: Fighting for Asylum

The United Nations estimates that up to 15,000 Sudanese, primarily in southern Sudan, have been abducted and sold into slavery by militiamen loyal to Sudan’s Islamist government. According to Human Rights Watch, this slave trade is sanctioned by Sudan’s regime as part of its counterinsurgency war against the SPLM/A.

Slavery in Sudan

OVERVIEW OF THE SUDAN SITUATION - There are at least 4 ways in which large numbers of Sudanese men, women and children lose their freedom:

Some marauding, government-backed militias, who are mainly from the Baggara tribe in western Sudan, attack primarily villages of the Dinka tribe in southern Sudan. These raids are one manifestation of a long-standing religious/racial/language conflict in that country that has been fueling a civil war for the past 40 years. More lives have allegedly been lost in Sudan's civil war than in Bosnia, Rwanda and Kosovo combined.

Because of the civil war, tribal animosities in the south have been aggravated. An ancient tribal practice has once more become common: women and children are being abducted by rival tribes. The victims are kidnapped and held until their relatives can scrape up enough ransom money to buy them back.

The Sudan Foundation, a non-Muslim group, claims that "Outside those areas controlled by the Sudanese Government, the old practice of inter-tribal feuding continues. In these raids prisoners are taken, who must then be ransomed. What looks like the purchase of slaves is actually the redemption of prisoners of war."

The Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA), which is fighting the Sudanese government, has raided villagers and forced men and children to work as laborers or porters for the rebel army. Some have been forcibly conscripted into the army.

The Sudan Slave Story

Two million people have died in the conflict, mostly civilians. In the center of this carnage a huge slave trade is going on. Civilians, mostly women and children, with their husbands slain  have little ability to resist and are being sold into slavery to the northern Sudan Muslims and the eastern emirates.

The Peace FAQ: Slavery, Slaves - Frequently Asked Questions

ARE THE ARABS STILL BUYING AND SELLING AFRICANS? -  Religious persecution of Christians in the Middle East has reached extreme forms of human degradation: In Sudan, abundant reports by international human rights organizations have documented the enslavement by the northern fundamentalist forces of southern African Christians. According to the reports and experts, there are today between 600,000 and one million Black slaves from Sudan, who have either been taken to the north of that country to work as domestics or tending farms, or sold in other Arab countries.

Hundreds of slaves freed in Sudan

Over the past three weeks, the organization says, 503 slaves, mainly women and children, were gathered from government-run camps in northern Sudan. Most of the slaves had been held in the camps for between one and three years. The 374 slaves were tightly packed in open trucks, approximately 55 on each truck. The remaining 129 of the 503 slaves had not yet arrived as of yesterday.

Human Security in Sudan: The Report of a Canadian Assessment Mission [PDF]

MANDATE - a) independently investigate human rights violations, specifically in reference to allegations of slavery and slavery-like practices in Sudan,

56 Boy Slaves Freed from Cattle Camps

56 boy slaves were liberated at the end of April from the cattle camps of Arab nomads in the borderlands between northern and southern Sudan. Their liberation was a joint action undertaken by CSI and the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee based at the borderland market town of Warawar. The boys had been abducted during government sponsored jihad slave raids against Black African, non-Muslim communities in northern Bahr El Ghazal.

Upon releasing the slaves, the head of the Baggara cattle camps between the Bahr el Arab and Lol Rivers, Shegir Al Agar, claimed that the boys had been very happy with their masters, whom they affectionately called "father." However, interviews with the boys revealed a clear pattern of physical and psychological abuse. They reported cases of beatings, stabbings, boy rape, racial insults, death threats, and forcible conversion to Islam.

Blue Nile May2003 Archives

MAY 28, 2003 - PRESIDENT BUSH URGED TO HELP FREE SUDANESE SLAVES NOW - CONDITIONS RIPE FOR MASS EXODUS OF SLAVES  -  Since 1995, CSI has facilitated the liberation and return of slaves through an 'Underground Railway' based on local Arab-Black African peace agreements. Over 6,000 women and children have returned to their homes through this mechanism in the first half of this year. However, tens of thousands of women and children remain enslaved, according to community leaders in both Northern and Southern Sudan. CSI's extensive documentation reveals that Sudanese slaves are routinely subjected to beatings, gang rape, mutilation -- including FGM -- racial insults and forcible conversion.

My life as a modern-day slave

She was just 12 when one night her village was targeted by Arab slave raiders, who snatched her away from her loving family to be a slave in far away Khartoum.  The story of her capture and life in servitude, published in her book Slave, reads like something from the Middle Ages but it happened in the early 1990s and she says this is still the lot of many young girls from southern Sudan.  She worked from first thing in the morning until late at night, washing, cleaning and ironing, without any pay or days off, sleeping in a locked shed in the garden.

Sudan's Slaves

Women and children abducted in slave raids are roped by the neck or strapped to animals and then marched north. Along the way, many women and girls are repeatedly gang-raped. Children who will not be silent are shot on the spot. In the north, slaves are either kept by individual militia soldiers or sold in markets. Boys work as livestock herders, forced to sleep with the animals they care for.

"Some who try to escape have their Achilles tendons cut to hamper their ability to run. Masters typically use women and girls as domestics and concubines, cleaning by day and serving the master sexually by night. Survivors report being called "Abeed" (black slave), enduring daily beatings, and receiving awful food. Masters also strip slaves of their religious and cultural identities, giving them Arabic names and forcing them to pray as Muslims."

Saudi Religious Leader Calls for Slavery's Legalization

Muslims, in contrast, still think the old way. Slavery still exists in a host of majority-Muslim countries (especially Sudan and Mauritania, also Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) and it is a taboo subject. To enable pious Muslims to avoid interest, an Islamic financial industry worth an estimated $150 billion has developed.

The challenge ahead is clear: Muslims must emulate their fellow monotheists by modernizing their religion with regard to slavery, interest and much else. No more fighting jihad to impose Muslim rule. No more endorsement of suicide terrorism. No more second-class citizenship for non-Muslims.

Jihad Slavery: An Ugly Living Legacy

The cruelty that Francis Bok experienced at age seven defies civilized human conception.

Today, Francis Bok is not only free. He has educated himself. And he has fulfilled his father’s dreams. He is like twelve men. He speaks for the enslaved Dinka masses, still suffering Islamic razzias in Southern Sudan. He speaks for his murdered parents and sisters. He speaks for the enslaved Dinka children, far less lucky than he.

Sudan Oilfields and Genocide

There is a killing place in Africa called the oilfields of the Sudan. Here the Sudanese government (GOS) practices systemic genocide with a vengeance on its own people. In this place a more able world has ignored the cries of cruelly persecuted natives who have lived here for many generations. In this place a terrible holocaust is taking place each day. Here a repressive government kills its own after the events of September 11th, with impunity, challenging the United Nations and the coalition's resolutions to enforce the protocol of 1948 outlawing genocide.

Thousands of slaves in Sudan

More than 11,000 people have been abducted in 20 years of slave-raiding in Sudan, a new report says.  Some 10,000 of these are still missing and many are being held as slaves, one of the report's authors told BBC News Online.

SLAVERY IN SUDAN: The New Holocaust

An instructive case is Sudan. Atrocities there exceed every other world horror. For 10 years the blacks of South Sudan have been victims of an onslaught that has taken more than 2 million lives. Colin Powell calls it ''the worst human rights nightmare on the planet.'' Yet with the important exception of the black Christian community here, there has been a disturbingly muted reaction from well-known American human rights champions. The media cover the deaths in Sudan only occasionally.

Young Boy Slaves Gang-Raped In Sudan

During a recent fact finding trip to Southern Sudan, Freedom Now World News discovered overwhelming evidence that young black, boy slaves are repeatedly gang-raped by their Arab masters. While previous reports on slavery have focused mainly on the gang-rape of female slaves, sociologist and investigative reporter, Maria Sliwa received testimony from numerous boy victims of rape.

Many of the redeemed slaves told Sliwa that in order to avoid rape, male slaves would try to escape but were hunted down like animals by their masters. The punishment for resisting rape is often severe beatings, death or limb amputation.

Slavery and Slave Redemption in the Sudan

Human Rights Watch has long denounced slavery in Sudan in the context of the nineteen-year civil war. In this contemporary form of slavery government-backed and armed militia of the Baggara tribes raid to capture children and women who are then held in conditions of slavery in western Sudan and elsewhere. They are forced to work for free in homes and in fields, punished when they refuse, and abused physically and sometimes sexually.

War and Slavery in Sudan

Jok emphasizes that the contemporary practice of slavery in Sudan is not the result of two decades of civil war, as conventional wisdom in the media would have one believe. Instead he revisits the historic hostilities between the Islamic world to the north and, to the south, the Black African peoples, many of whom are Christian converts.

For Arab traders "the nation of the blacks," or Bilad Al-Sudan, has traditionally been the source of slaves. When the slave trade developed into corporate enterprise in the nineteenth century, the slave-takers articulated distinctions based on race, ethnicity, and religion that marked the black, infidel southerners as indisputably inferior and therefore "natural" slaves. Such distinctions have survived for decades and have fueled various forms of oppression of the black south, even during those periods when slavery has not been authorized by the government. When it is authorized, as it is today, slavery then becomes the extreme form of this systemic oppression.

Slavery In Sudan is Real

MODERN DAY SLAVERY - Modern day slavery first emerged with the support of the government of Sudan during the time Sadiq el Mahdi was Prime Minister of Sudan, 1986-1989. The complicity of the Government of Sudan (GOS) in encouraging the murahileen Arab militia were first documented by 2 University of Khartoum professors, Dr. Ushari Mahamoud and Dr. Suleyman Ali Baldo themselves devout Muslims and Arabs from the North.

DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT - In 1987, Dr.Ushari Mahmoud co-authored an independent investigation into a massacre in the Sudanese town of ed Dai'en and the revival of practices of slavery in the region. He concluded that the government was actively encouraging the elements who were responsible for both the massacre and the resurgence of slavery..."

Slavery in Sudan Must End

  A 13-year-old boy, Yak Kenyang Adeiu, had all his fingers cut off by his slave master.

  Mawien Aher Bol had his finger cut off by his master because he lost a goat.

  Angot Wol Angra was attacked by her master's brother with a knife when she lost a goat.

  Arek Kiir had her throat cut and her chest burned because she refused to give up her infant to a slave master.

  Agom Bol Akuei and her children were forced to carry a heavy load of salt, looted by slave traders. She collapsed under the weight, and the load of salt crushed her jaw. She received no medical attention.

  Garang Deng Yel and Athian Athian Athian had their arms chopped off with an ax by slave owners when they went north to try to rescue their enslaved wives and children.

  A woman who walked with a severe limp recounted to me how she had been gang-raped by her master and 10 others. When she resisted, the men violently forced her legs apart, dislocating one of her hips from the joint.

Is there Slavery in Sudan? [PDF]

3. INFORMATION GIVEN TO ANTI-SLAVERY'S REPRESENTATIVES BY INDIVIDUALS WITH PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF ABDUCTION

3.1 GABRIEL MUONG DENG, A YOUNG MAN INTERVIEWED IN AD-DHA'EIN

58. I am from Warawar [possibly Wedweil], near Marial Bai (in North Bahr El Ghazal). I was abducted about five years ago and spent about four years working for a man called Adam Mohamed. I am about 15 now, and was about nine or ten when taken.

3.2 TESTIMONY OF BOL MANYUAT BOL, A YOUNG MAN INTERVIEWED IN KHARTOUM

65. At the time of my abduction I was living in Akwat Ajok village in Southern Gogrial, near Wau. I had just started school and was in my first year. My father had died as a result of illness, and my mother had recently been injured (by an anti-personnel mine) and had part of her leg amputated. As a result, I was out of school with my two brothers and three sisters. I went to the market in Wau and met some Arabs there. Four of them asked me to go with them, which I agreed to do. They were selling sheep. After a while I wanted to leave the Arabs, but they would not let me, and when I cried they said they would hit me.

3.3 TESTIMONY OF AHOK AKOK, A WOMAN INTERVIEWED AT KHARTOUM

71. Our family was captured about six years ago [i.e. about 1994] when we were already fleeing north and had crossed into the North into Kordofan. I was captured with my son, Akai, and my two daughters, this one called Abuk [present at the interview], who was about eight at the time, and a younger one, about two. We were taken by a tribe called Humr [ie, Misseriya Humr], who split the three of us up. The man who took me subsequently sold me on to some other nomads to look after cattle, for about 130 Sudanese Pounds. I had to look after their cows and spent about six years with them before I managed to escape to Makaringa village.

3.4 TESTIMONY OF MAYEL DENG MAJOK, A YOUNG MAN INTERVIEWED IN NYALA

74. I am from Ajuang near Aweil. I am about 16 years old now. I used to look after cattle for my aunt. One day about two or three years ago some raiders came, about 30 of them on horses. They caught me near where I had been sitting with some boys under a tree. Six of us had our wrists tied and were put in a horse-drawn cart. One of the other boys was called Makuch. Later on the same day three women were captured as well. We all had to go with the horsemen, sometimes riding, sometimes walking, for about six days, until we got to Sidam village, where the nine of us were split up. A man called Al-Fadhl took me to his house in Ferdos (a village near Ad-Dha'ein) by horse. He had five relatives there. During the wet season I had to dig the ground, and in the dry season look after goats. I learnt to speak Arabic from the others. I slept in the house with the others, collected water from a deep well, which I carried on a donkey back to the household, but generally had to eat by myself.

U.N. Fails to Censure Sudan's Slavery

The United Nations' top human rights body adopted a resolution Friday citing Sudan for violations of human rights, but the United States criticized the text for its failure to censure Sudan for slavery and attacks on religious freedom.

Anti-Slavery Sudan mission returns

There have been reports from Sudan that as many as 14,000 people originating in southern Sudan need to be reunited with their families. Many of these people were abducted from their homes and some are still being forced to work for others.

Slavery in the Sudan - A briefing by John Eibner

In Sudan today, more than 100,000 women and children are victims of chattel slavery. Once captured, they become the private property of individual masters, and have to endure endless hard work, poor nutrition, and sexual abuse. Torture is commonplace and severe beatings the norm when a slave displeases his or her master.

SLAVERY IN THE NAME OF JIHAD - One finds slavery and quasi-slavery practices around the world, yet what makes slavery unique in Sudan is that there has been was a revival of the practice in the mid-1980s. The institution was virtually extinct in the 1970s and slave raids were unknown, except in a few remote places. The revival began in 1983, when then-president Ja'far Numayri placed himself at the vanguard of the Islamic revolution in Africa.

Buying the freedom of slaves in Sudan

www.cnn.com/WORLD/9712/20/sudan.slavery/

A global charity is fighting the internationally condemned slave trade in Sudan in its own way -- by buying the freedom of slaves and reuniting them, mostly boys and girls, with their families.

The U.N. Finds Slavery in the Sudan

INTRODUCTION BY DAVID LITTMAN - A military regime espousing a fundamentalist Islamic orientation came to power in the Sudan on June 30, 1989. Since 1992, the U.N. General Assembly and its Geneva-based Commission on Human Rights have regularly adopted resolutions condemning the Sudanese government for its many human-rights violations. Of particular concern are the accusations against the Sudanese authorities not just of extrajudicial killings and torture but also of slavery and forced conversions to Islam.

Dr. Ushari Mahmoud's "Al Daein Massacre-Slavery Sudan"

DESCRIPTION OF INCIDENT - Dr. Ushari was detained shortly after the coup (June 30, 1989). In a letter to President Jimmy Carter, written from Shalla Prison in Daufur dated April 5, 1990, he wrote: 'I have been recently transferred to this prison after nine months of detention at Kobar prison in Khartoum. While I was detained at Kobar, specifically on March 18, I was visited by ex-Minister of Finance, Dr. Sayed Ali Zaki. He came to me with a specific message from the military authorities. The gist of the message was that I would be released if i retract in writing and deny the truth of what I had written about slavery in "Al Daein Massacre-Slavery in the Sudan." Otherwise, I would continue to be detained "indefinitely".

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Human Trafficking in  [Sudan]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Sudan]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Sudan]  [other countries]