Slavery is still widespread throughout the southern Sahara. Now, in another sign of the times, a Tuareg chief in Niger is freeing 7000 of his slaves:
It is the first time since the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade that such a number of slaves will be voluntarily given up by their master, after a change in the law to make slavery punishable by a 30-year jail term.
Slavery in Niger, a practice dating back centuries, was outlawed during independence from France in 1960, but the new constitution carried no penalty. Although the French had stamped out the trafficking and slave markets, they refused to class bonded workers as slaves, terming them “voluntary labourers” in a 1905 survey. Post-colonial administrations have until now turned a blind eye to the mass bondage of their people, most captured as the spoils of war, kidnapped or traded as dowry.
The practice is still widespread throughout the southern Sahara, in Mali, Mauritania and Chad. Slave masters and slaves are often from the same tribe. The chief of Inates, Tuareg Aristal, is the first to voluntarily release his slaves. He is a strict Muslim and has said that owning slaves is “incompatible with the Koran”. He will be spared prosecution, and despite intense pressure from other slave masters, he will today condemn the practice.
Update: or maybe not:
A human rights group in the West African desert nation of Niger called off what had been billed as a mass liberation of 7,000 slaves after none showed up for the ceremony. It blamed government threats against local leaders for the failure of any slaves to attend.
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