The Hindu : International / Globescan : Mass release of African slaves

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Mar 06, 2005

International

International - Globescan

Mass release of African slaves

Nairobi: A ceremony on Saturday transformed the lives of 7,000 men, women and children in one of the most remote corners of Africa. From Saturday afternoon, they will no longer be told whom to marry, no longer be made to labour for nothing, no longer left to eat the scraps from their masters' tables. Nearly two centuries after the Atlantic slave trade was abolished, the ownership of people persists in some countries on the fringes of the Sahara. In Niger, a landlocked expanse of semi-desert in West Africa, that will change with one of the biggest mass releases of slaves the world has seen in recent times. Slavery was made illegal only last May in the country. The mass emancipation, at a public ceremony attended by Government representatives, is the first in Niger's history and campaigners hope this example will lead to the liberation of thousands more. The slave-owners, fairer-skinned ``white Tuaregs'', enjoy a leisured lifestyle at the expense of their slaves. Although Islam forbids a Muslim from owning another Muslim as a slave, some slave-owners in Niger, an almost entirely Muslim country, claim that a slave's place in paradise depends on how well he or she serves their master.

— © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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