Mick Hartley

As this BBC article reminds us, taking slaves was a common practice in the 21-year North-South war in Sudan:

The northern government is widely believed to have armed the Arab militias in order to terrorise the southern population and distract rebel forces from attacking government targets.

According to a study by the Kenya-based Rift Valley Institute, some 11,000 young boys and girls were seized and taken across the internal border – many to the states of South Darfur and West Kordofan.

The boys generally looked after cattle, while the girls mostly did domestic chores before being “married”, often as young as 12.

Most were forcibly converted to Islam, given Muslim names and told not to speak their mother tongue.

Despite the horrors of the current Darfur conflict, abduction into slavery doesn’t feature so much. Murder and rape, yes – slavery, no:

The Darfur conflict broke out just as the war in the south was coming to an end and eyewitness reports bear a striking similarity of atrocities committed by the militias, known in Darfur as the Janjaweed…

Sudanese human rights workers say some members of the Arab Rezeigat community have been in both the Janjaweed and the Murahaleen but most of the Janjaweed are from different Arab tribes.

Sudan’s veteran anti-slave campaigner James Aguer, however, says they are exactly the same groups, just with a different name.

Sudan’s government has strongly denied claims it mobilised first the Murahaleen and then the Janjaweed to terrorise civilian populations seen as rebel sympathisers.

It also denies there are slaves in Sudan, instead using the euphemism “abductees”…

One reason why there seems to be less slavery in Darfur could be religion.

Both Darfur and south Sudan are mostly inhabited by black Africans but southerners are mostly Christian and animist, while Darfuris are generally Muslim, like the Arabs who have traditionally dominated Sudan.

Forced conversion seemed to be one motivation behind the abduction of southerners – they were mostly given Islamic names and told they were now Muslim.

One group of abductors was known as the Muhajadeen [Islamic holy warriors].

But this justification cannot be used in Darfur.

“Muslims are strictly forbidden to enslave fellow Muslims,” the lawyer said.

Some pictures and personal testimony here.