Black Slavery in Muslim-Dominated African Nations

Freed Sudanese slave woman waiting for aid

“Today, an estimated 529,000 to 869,000 black men, women, and children are still slaves. They are bought, owned, sold, and traded by Arab and Muslim masters in five African countries. This statistic estimates those enslaved in Algeria, Libya, Mauritania, and Sudan. It excludes Nigeria, for which there are no tangible estimates. Western human rights organizations and the mainstream media are practically and painfully silent on this matter. It does not fit with their focus on Western white sin. Here is a brief survey of this quasi-taboo topic. In Sudan, slavery remains a painful vestige of the Second Sudanese Civil War (1983–2005). That’s when the Arab Muslim government in the north of the country declared a jihad upon the black, largely Christian south. They killed perhaps 2.5 million people and enslaved as many as 200,000. Slaves rescued by grassroots abolitionists tell horrific stories. Abduction. Beatings. Forced conversion to Islam. Grueling labor. Female genital mutilation. Malnutrition. Rape. In Mauritania, the very structure of society reinforces slavery. Over the centuries a cruel class system has evolved. The lighter-skinned Arabs (beydanes) and Arabized Berbers rule over the black former slaves. Those slaves have been forcibly Arabized over time (haratin). The free blacks in the south who refuse Arabization and call themselves ‘Negro-Africans’ and the black chattel slave class (abid) are at the bottom. The country is entirely Muslim. Islam theoretically forbids the enslavement of one Muslim by another. However, in this case, Arab racism supersedes adherence to the Shari‘ah (Islamic law). In 1993, a U.S. State Department report estimated that between 30,000 and 90,000 blacks lived as slaves owned by private masters. In 2012, a CNN investigation estimated that the number could be as high as 340,000 to 680,000. Sub-Saharan Africans fleeing violence and poverty for Europe are enslaved by Algerian and Libyan Arabs as they try to cross the Mediterranean. Today, according to the Global Slavery Index, around 106,000 black Africans are estimated to be enslaved in Algeria. Migrant women, but also children (both male and female), risk being forced into sexual slavery. In Nigeria, the long-running civil war between the Muslim majority and the 40% Christian minority involves the enslavement of Christian Nigerians. The taking of Christian slaves has become a source of compensation for Islamic fighters.”

“Black Slavery Exists Today” by Charles Jacobs, President of the American Anti-Slavery Group, The Stream, Sept. 4, 2019

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