SLAVERY AND RADICAL MUSLIMS
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Abuk Bak an escaped slave and mother recently confronted the Sudanese ambassador to the U.S. demanding reparations and an apology for Khartoum's egregious record of human rights abuses that continue today. Ms. Bak and her family now live in Boston, Massachusetts. The American Anti-Slavery Group speaks out on behalf of slaves. Indeed, our leading spokespeople are themselves survivors of slavery: Francis Boks book Escape from Slavery is a gripping autobiography
America Abolish Slavery Group > IAbolish.com
Gang-rape by Arab Muslim slave raiders are an integral element of Sudanese slavery.
The UN Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD) reported that "fundamentalist Islam and Arab fanaticism" play a crucial role in the enslavement of Black Africans in North Africa, especially in Sudan and Mauritania. The case of Sudan is particularly disturbing because of the central role played by an Arab-Muslim supremacist state in reviving the country's ancient slave trade in the context of a declared jihad.
The publication of this report coincided with a fact-finding visit by CSI's Slavery Research Unit to the Afro-Arab borderlands of Sudan. Our research team, which has just returned from the field, interviewed 97 female slaves above the age of 12 who were recently liberated from bondage. The preliminary statistical findings of racial abuse are as follows:
Form of Abuse Percentage
Forced Labor without Pay 96.9%
Forced Conversion to Islam 25.8%
Frequent Beatings 96.9%
Racial Insults (i.e., Arabic terms for "slave", "nigger" etc.) 97.9%
Rape 79.3%
Gang-rape 77.0%
Female Genital Mutilation 40.2%
Our Slavery Research Unit has documented the liberation of 2,014 Black slaves through Sudan's CSI-sponsored 'Underground Railroad' since the middle of July. Altogether 56,440 slaves have been freed by CSI and returned to their home areas since 1995. Despite this achievement, a minimum of 200,000 Black women and children currently remain enslaved in northern Sudan, according to the Black African civil authorities in the six counties of northern Bahr El Ghazal - the region most severely affected by the slave raiding.
Slavery is clearly defined in international law as a "crime against humanity". So too is sexual violence against women and girls in the context of armed combat. The statistics show that such sexual crimes, especially gang-rape by Arab Muslim slave raiders and masters, are an integral element of Sudanese slavery.
As highlighted by the UNRISD report, contemporary slavery in Sudan (and elsewhere in North Africa) is deeply rooted in Arab and Muslim supremacism. The historic transatlantic slave trade has been abolished. Yet the Arab slave trade - a potent form of contemporary racism - continues to blight Black Africa. Moreover, the Arab League has tried to intimidate you and other human rights defenders by declaring that it is an act against all Arabs and Muslims even to state that slavery exists in Sudan today. (Middle East Quarterly, December 1999, p. 15.)
The Word Conference is preoccupied with the Middle East, as well as demands for reparations from the United States and Europe for their role in the former transatlantic slave trade. Hope is now fading that the Conference will do justice to contemporary Black African victims of slavery. As a matter of urgency, we therefore appeal to you to help get the Conference on-track by condemning the current enslavement of Black Africans in the Afro-Arab borderlands of North Africa, and by tabling again the proposal you made in your report to the UNCHR last year for the disarmament of the Sudanese government militias that raid for slaves.
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