Recently in slavery Category

DUBAI: Being gay in the Middle East is taboo. Crackdowns in Arab countries against homosexuals is common and swift, with many countries employing the death penalty against convicted homosexuals.

Now, a new report published by Identity, a gay magazine in Kenya, reveals that gay Kenyan men are being trafficked into the Gulf as sex slaves for the wealthy.

The report alleges that gay and bisexual men are lured from university campuses – particularly from Kenyatta University – with promises of high-paying jobs and then transported to labor as sex workers for men in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Saudi Arabia.

According to the magazine, due to Kenya’s soaring unemployment rate, the men are easily fooled into this trap.

The publication interviewed one Kenyan victim who was promised a job in Qatar but ended up suffering sexual abuse.

Qatar specifically, has no laws against human trafficking, which has made cracking down on the practice nearly impossible.

“Qatar is a transit and destination country for men and women subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor and, to a much lesser extent, forced prostitution,” the US State Department stated in a recent report.

“Men and women from Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia, Sudan, Thailand, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, and China voluntarily travel to Qatar as laborers and domestic servants, but some subsequently face conditions indicative of involuntary servitude. These conditions include threats of serious physical or financial harm; job switching; the withholding of pay; charging workers for benefits for which the employer is responsible; restrictions on freedom of movement, including the confiscation of passports and travel documents and the withholding of exit permits; arbitrary detention; threats of legal action and deportation; false charges; and physical, mental, and sexual abuse.”

In the Emirates, while being openly gay is illegal, the community has blossomed in recent years. Mark, a gay Canadian man, told Bikyamasr.com that “the community has increased dramatically and people are more willing, and accepting, of the LGBT community here.”

But he said the report that Kenyan men are being used as sex slaves is “not surprising.”

“We have seen a lot of the elite and super wealthy want to be gay, but that would go against their traditions, so instead they often marry and then hire or do this kind of thing, to have their real desires met. It is a problem of society not opening up to the gay lifestyle and forcing it to the background,” he argued.

Anti-slavery crusaders have great difficulty in some Muslim countries because slavery is rooted in the Qur’an and Muhammad’s example. Muhammad owned slaves, and the Qur’an takes the existence of slavery for granted, even as it enjoins the freeing of slaves under certain circumstances, such as the breaking of an oath: “Allah will not call you to account for what is futile in your oaths, but He will call you to account for your deliberate oaths: for expiation, feed ten indigent persons, on a scale of the average for the food of your families; or clothe them; or give a slave his freedom” (5:89).

But while the freeing of a slave or two here and there is encouraged, the institution itself is never questioned. The Qur’an even gives a man permission to have sexual relations with his slave girls as well as with his wives: “The believers must (eventually) win through, those who humble themselves in their prayers; who avoid vain talk; who are active in deeds of charity; who abstain from sex, except with those joined to them in the marriage bond, or (the captives) whom their right hands possess, for (in their case) they are free from blame…” (23:1-6). A Muslim is not to have sexual relations with a woman who is married to someone else – except a slave girl: “And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you” (4:24).

Slavery is still practiced more or less openly today in Sudan and Mauritania, and there is evidence that slavery still continues beneath the surface in some majority-Muslim countries as well -- notably Saudi Arabia, which only abolished slavery in 1962, Yemen and Oman, both of which ended legal slavery in 1970, and Niger, which didn’t abolish slavery until 2004. In Niger, the ban is widely ignored, and according to a Nigerian study, as many as one million people remain in bondage there.

"Mauritania prosecutor seeks prison for slavery activists," from Middle East Online, August 18 (thanks to Twostellas):

NOUAKCHOTT - The Nouakchott public prosecutor on Wednesday called for jail terms to be handed out to nine anti-slavery activists accused of "rebellion".

The nine members of an anti-slavery NGO appeared in court charged with "unauthorised gathering and rebellion", after they organised a sit-in protest against child enslavement.

The accused were arrested on August 4 during their protest in front of a Nouakchott police station against the enslavement of a 10-year-old girl.

They claimed the woman accused of keeping the child as a slave had been freed on the day of the protest, while the child was missing.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it continued unabated and a law making enslavement punishable with up to 10 years in prison, introduced in 2007, has not been applied.

Human rights organisation Anti-Slavery International says on its website some 600,000 people are estimated to be enslaved in Mauritania.

In court the prosecutor demanded that eight of the defendants should be jailed for at least two years.

The ninth, accused of assaulting a police officer, deserves a three-year term, the prosecuting team added.

The defence lawyers called for their clients to be freed, saying they were only helping to apply the law by denouncing the enslavement of minors.

"Our clients should, on the contrary, be thanked for helping this crime to be uncovered," one of those lawyers, Mohamed Ould Bilal, said....

Yep.

Translating Jihad has now posted the complete subtitled video of the statement by the hijabbed Kuwaiti "activist" Salwa al-Mutairi, calling for the revival of the Islamic practice of using captive non-Muslim women as sex slaves, in accord with Qur'an 4:3.

"Video: Kuwaiti Activist: 'I Hope that Kuwait Will Enact a Law for...Sex Slaves,'" from Translating Jihad, June 22:

[...] I was given the opportunity to visit Mecca, and when I did so, I brought up (this man's) situation to the muftis in Mecca. I told them that I had a question, since they were men who specialized in what was halal, and what was good, and who loved women. I said, "What is the law of sex slaves?"

The mufti said, "With the law of sex slaves, there must be a Muslim nation at war with a Christian nation, or a nation which is not of the religion, not of the religion of Islam. And there must be prisoners of war."

"Is this forbidden by Islam?," I asked.

"Absolutely not. Sex slaves are not forbidden by Islam. On the contrary, sex slaves are under a different law than the free woman. The free woman must be completely covered except for her face and hands. But the sex slave can be naked from the waist up. She differs a lot from the free woman. While the free woman requires a marriage contract, the sex slave does not--she only needs to be purchased by her husband, and that's it. Therefore the sex slave is different than the free woman."

Of course, I also asked religious experts in Kuwait (about this issue), and they told me about the problem with the passionate man, or even the man who is committed to his religion. For every good man in our religion, the only solution for him--when forbidden women come around, if he's tempted to sin, then the solution to this issue is for him to purchase sex slaves. I hope that Kuwait will enact the law for this category, this category of people--the sex slaves. [...]

There is much more. Read it all.

Not that keeping a sex slave would in itself constitute adultery or corruption. Women taken captive as prisoners of war and then enslaved as concubines is sanctioned by the Qur'an, you see: "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess. It is a decree of Allah for you." -- Qur'an 4:24

This is the sort of Qur'anic provision that Muslims in the West routinely insist is a relic of the past, never to be revived again among Muslims. How is it that Salwa Al-Mutairi came to Misunderstand Islam so spectacularly?

Note also the hollowness of Islamic morality as Salwa Al-Mutairi envisions it. Islamic leaders routinely castigate the West for its immorality, but their alternative is this veneer of morality covering barbarity, brutality, and the use of women as commodities.

"Female activist calls for legalizing sex slavery," by A Saleh for Kuwait Times, June 4 (thanks to Paul):

KUWAIT: A female political activist and former parliamentary candidate has recommended the introduction of legislation to legalize the provision of enslaved female concubines for Muslim men in Kuwait in a bid, she says, to protect those men from committing adultery or corruption.

The activist, Salwa Al-Mutairi, suggested apparently seriously in a video broadcast online that she had been informed by some clerics that affluent Muslim men who fear being seduced or tempted into immoral behavior by the beauty of their female servants, or even of those servants 'casting spells' on them, would be better to purchase women from an 'enslaved maid' agency for sexual purposes.

She suggested that special offices could be set up to provide concubines in the same way as domestic staff recruitment agencies currently provide housemaids.

We want our youth to be protected from adultery," said Al-Mutairi, suggesting that these maids could be brought as prisoners of war in war-stricken nations like Chechnya to be sold on later to devout merchants.

This is not religiously forbidden," she added, indicating that Caliph Haroun Al-Rashid (766-809 AD) was married to one woman but possessed 200 concubines.

Slavery is taken for granted in the Qur'an, so Saeeda Khan probably didn't see anything wrong with what she was doing at all.

"Brit-Muslim woman convicted of trafficking woman she used as slave," from ANI, March 17 (thanks to Twostellas):

London, Mar 17 : A former hospital director in Britain has been convicted of trafficking a woman from Tanzania and using her as a "slave".

Saeeda Khan had brought Mwanahamisi Mruke, 47, to the UK with the promise of a domestic service visa, 120,000 Tanzanian shillings a month (50 pounds), and also 10 pounds a month pocket money.

Mruke, who was desperate to fund her daughter Zakia’s college education, agreed.

But when she arrived in Britain in October 2006, Mruke was forced by Khan to work around the clock and sleep on the kitchen floor of her home in Harrow, London, for the next three years.

Mruke was fed just two slices of bread a day, ordered around by a bell, which her captor kept in her bedroom, and prohibited from leaving the house.

Her passport was also taken away, and Khan made threats about her relatives in Tanzania, and although the payment arrangements were initially honoured, Khan stopped paying Mruke after one year.

The jury at Southwark crown court found Khan guilty of trafficking a person into the UK for exploitation.

She was sentenced to nine months in prison, suspended for two years, and ordered to pay 15,000 pounds towards police and prosecution costs, plus 25,000 pounds compensation to Mruke.

Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC said Khan had told “a pack of lies” during the trial.

“Your behaviour was callous and greedy,” the Guardian quoted him as saying.

Speaking after she was convicted, Mruke said she would “never forgive” the person who had imprisoned her.

“I felt like a fool, I was treated like a slave. Even the money I was promised, I was never paid. I feel terrible about this,” she stated....

Slavery is taken for granted in the Qur'an, and is still practiced in many areas of the Islamic world -- here, in Mauritania. And where are the human rights organizations, as these freedom fighters get railroaded?

"Anti-slavery activists face possible charges in Mauritania," from Middle East Online, December 16 (thanks to Twostellas):

NOUAKCHOTT - Seven anti-slavery activists arrested in Mauritania after a protest to highlight the plight of two young girls have been handed over to the public prosecutor's office, officials said on Wednesday.

The seven, arrested on Monday for violent protest, included the leader of the Mauritanian anti-slavery body the Initiative for the Resurgence of Abolitionism Movement Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid.

"Seven of our comrades have been handed over to the legal authorities," said Mohamed Ould Mahmoud of the group. A judicial official confirmed the information.

Ould Mahmoud said the group had told the authorities that their fight against slavery would continue "with or without him (Biram)".

He also said that the head of the group had suffered head and knee injuries in custody and warned that he would hold the authorities responsible for any mistreatment. He did not give any indication of how serious the injuries were.

The authorities have accused the seven, who were demanding the liberation of two girl slaves aged nine and 13, of attacking the security forces, injuring six policemen, and ransacking a police station.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it still persists in some parts of the country.

Islamic law provides for buying one's way out of killing through diyyah, or blood money, favoring the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor. But Sharia prescribes death for homosexuality (on Muhammad's orders), often in cruelly imaginative ways, at least for those who get caught:

"Gay people should be thrown head first off high buildings and if not killed on hitting the ground, they should be then stoned to death." - Minhaj al-Muslim (The Way of the Muslim)

This case again demonstrates one of the many absurdities and injustices of Sharia law. By contrast, justice was done for the servant in Britain in a way that would never have been possible in Saudi Arabia. An update on this story. "Saudi prince found guilty of murdering servant in hotel," from BBC News, October 19:

A Saudi prince has been found guilty of murdering his servant at a hotel in central London.

Bandera Abdulaziz, 32, was found beaten and strangled in the Landmark Hotel, Marylebone, on 15 February 2010.

The Old Bailey was told the assault by Saud Abdulaziz bin Nasser al Saud had a "sexual element" and he had attacked Mr Abdulaziz many times before.

Al Saud, 34, had admitted manslaughter but denied murdering Mr Abdulaziz. He will be sentenced on Wednesday. [...]

Jurors heard that Mr Abdulaziz was left so worn down and injured - having suffered a "cauliflower" ear and a swollen eye from previous assaults - that he let Al Saud kill him without a fight.

Al Saud then spent hours on the phone to a contact in Saudi Arabia trying to work out how to cover up what he had done. [...]

At the BBC link above, there is disturbing video of Al Saud beating Abdulaziz in an elevator.

In court the prince's lawyers tried to cover up evidence of Al Saud's homosexuality.

If he ever returns to his home country he faces the possibility of execution - not because of the murder, but because being gay is a capital offence in Saudi Arabia.

The verdict means a long jail term for the prince, who is a member of one of the world's richest and most powerful dynasties.

Al Saud, who lived in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, told police his father was a nephew of the Saudi king and his mother was a daughter of the monarch.

Outside court, Det Ch Insp John McFarlane said: "The defendant used his position of power, money and authority over his victim Bandar to abuse him over an extended period of time."

"This verdict clearly shows no-one, regardless of their position, is above the law," he added.

Unlike Saudi Arabia.

How Islam breathed new life into slavery and the slave trade in Europe
by John J. O'Neill

In my newly-published book, Holy Warriors: Islam and the Demise of Classical Civilization, I argue at length that a great majority of the things commonly regarded as "Medieval" were in fact introduced to Europe from Islam, and that it was Islam, and not the Huns, Vandals and Goths, which terminated Classical Civilization, the rational and humane civilization of Greece and Rome. This civilization survived in Europe and in North Africa and the Near East until the seventh century, at which point it was terminated by the Muslim conquests.

In point of fact, Islam's influence upon Europe was much greater than is commonly imagined, but that influence was entirely negative. Not only did the Muslims terminate Classical Civilization, but they dragged Europe, on many levels, down to a more barbarous level of culture. It was from the Muslims, for example, that Christian Europeans got the idea of "Holy War," a concept that would have been unthinkable in earlier centuries. And from Islam too, the institution of slavery, as well as the slave trade, received a new and powerful impetus.

Melanie Phillips discusses the 17-19th century jihad against Britain, which also touched the U.S. in the wars against the Barbary pirates of the early 19th century. Like the British raids, the Barbary conflicts have not been generally understood in the West as constituting jihad warfare; only recently have historians begun to realize that those warriors had the same ideology that motivates jihadists today.

From Melanie Phillips' diary, with thanks to Alan:

On my travels for the past few days, I have been reading a book which tells the story of a quite astonishing part of British history of which I was previously unaware. In 'White Gold', Giles Milton records the appalling details -- gleaned,it appears, from a wealth of historical documents including diaries and letters -- of a seaborne Islamic jihad against Britain which lasted for no less than two centuries.

From the early seventeenth to nineteenth centuries, thousands of British men women and children were kidnapped by Arab corsairs and sold into slavery in Morocco where they were kept in conditions of unspeakable barbarism. The astounding thing is that these British victims were not merely seized at sea where they ran the gauntlet of such pirates in places such as the Straits of Gibraltar. They were actually abducted from Britain itself.

Corsairs from a place in Morocco called Sale -- who became known in Britain as the 'Sally Rovers' -- sailed up the Cornish coast in July 1625, for example, came ashore dressed in djellabas and wielding damascene scimitars, burst into the parish church at Mount's Bay and dragged out 60 men women and children whom they shipped off to Morocco. Thousands more Britons were seized from their villages or their ships and dispatched to the hell-holes of the Moroccan slave pens, from where they were forced to work all hours in appalling conditions building the vast palace of the monstrous and psychopathic Sultan, Moulay Ismail, who tortured and butchered them at whim. Most of them perished, but the book records the survival of a tenacious Cornish boy Thomas Pellow, who survived 23 years of this ordeal and whose descendant, Lord Exmouth, finally ended the white slave trade when he destroyed Algiers in 1816.

The book makes clear that this assault upon the British people (and upon Europeans and Americans who were similarly seized) was a jihad. The Sally Rovers, writes Milton, were called 'al-ghuzat'-- the term once used for the soldiers who fought with the Prophet -- and were hailed as religious warriors engaged in a holy war against the infidel Christians who were pressurised to convert to Islam under threat of hideous punishment. What is even more striking was the response of the British crown. For almost two centuries, it made only the most ineffectual attempts to rescue its enslaved subjects. Those who had succumbed to the torture and inhumanity of the Sultan and converted to Islam were deemed to be no longer British and therefore outside the scope of any rescue. The pleas of Pellow's parents were simply brushed aside. Popular outrage forced successive Kings to dispatch a series of feeble emissaries to try to get the Sultan to end this vile traffic and release the slaves, all to no avail.

But this went on for virtually two centuries. For almost 200 years the British state either sat on its hands or wrung them impotently while the Islamic jihad seized, enslaved and butchered its people. And then it appears, this staggering onslaught was all but airbrushed out of our history.

Food for disquieting thought.

Even suicide terrorism was a factor in those days. John Paul Jones encountered suicide attacks by Muslim Turks in 1788. Jones described a naval encounter between the Turks and the Russians that took place when Jones served in the Russian Navy:

"...for it was the intention of the Turks to attack us and board us, and if we had been only three versts further the attempt would have been made on the 16th [June 1788] (before the vessel of the Captain Pacha ran aground in advancing before the wind with all his forces to attack us,), God only knows what would have been the result...The Turks had a very large force, and we have been informed by our prisoners that they were resolved to destroy us, even by burning themselves, (in setting fire to their own vessels after having grappled with ours.) [note added by Jones: Before their departure from Constantinople, they swore by the beard of the Sultan to execute this horrible plan...if Providence had not caused its failure from two circumstances which no man could forsee."]

That's from John Paul Jones' Letter to Prince Potemkin, June 20, 1788, from Life and Character of John Paul Jones-A Captain in the Navy of the United States, John H. Sherburne, 1825, p. 308.

Daniel Pipes writes in Front Page:

Homaidan Ali Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, appear to be a model immigrant couple. Having arrived in the United States in 2000, they live with their four children in an upscale Denver suburb. Al-Turki is a graduate student in linguistics at the University of Colorado, specializing in Arabic intonation and focus prosody. He donates money to the Linguistic Society of America and is CEO of Al-Basheer Publications and Translations, a bookstore specializing in titles about Islam.

Last week, however, the FBI accused the couple of enslaving an Indonesian woman in her early 20s. For four years, reads the indictment, they created “a climate of fear and intimidation through rape and other means.” The slave woman cooked, cleaned, took care of children, and more for little or no pay, fearing that if she did not obey, “she would suffer serious harm.”

The two Saudis face charges of forced labor, aggravated sexual abuse, document servitude, and harboring an alien. If found guilty, they could spend their remaining lives in prison. The government also wants to seize the couple’s Al-Basheer bank account to pay their former slave $92,700 in back wages.

It’s a shocking instance, especially for a graduate student and religious bookstore owner – but not a particularly rare one. Here are other examples of enslavement, all involving Saudi royals or diplomats living in the United States.

In 1982, a Miami judge issued a warrant to search Prince Turki Bin Abdul Aziz’s 24th-floor penthouse to determine if he was holding Nadia Lutefi Mustafa, an Egyptian woman, against her will. Turki and his French bodyguards prevented a search from taking place, then won retroactive diplomatic immunity to forestall any legal unpleasantness.
In 1988, the Saudi defense attaché in Washington, Col. Abdulrahman S. Al-Banyan, employed a Thai domestic, Mariam Roungprach, until she escaped his house by crawling out a window. She later told how she had been imprisoned there, did not get enough food, and was not paid. Interestingly, her work contract specified that she could not leave the house or make telephone calls without her employer’s permission.
In 1991, Prince Saad Bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud and his wife, Princess Noora, lived on two floors of the Ritz-Carlton Houston. Two of their servants, Josephine Alicog of the Philippines and Sriyani Marian Fernando of Sri Lanka, filed a suit against the prince, alleging they were for five months held against their will, “by means of unlawful threats, intimidation and physical force,” they were only partially paid, denied medical treatment, and suffered mental and physical abuse.
In March 2005, a wife of Saudi Prince Mohamed Bin Turki Alsaud, Hana Al Jader, 39, was arrested at her home outside of Boston on charges of forced labor, domestic servitude, falsifying records, visa fraud, and harboring aliens. Al Jader stands accused of compelling two Indonesian women to work for her by making them believe “that if they did not perform such labor, they would suffer serious harm.” If convicted, Al Jader faces up to 140 years in jail and $2.5 million in fines.
There are many other similar instances, for example, the Orlando escapades of Saudi princesses Maha al-Sudairi and Buniah al-Saud. Joel Mowbray tells of twelve female domestics “trapped and abused” in the households of Saudi dignitaries or diplomats.

Why is this problem so acute when it comes to affluent Saudis? Four reasons come to mind. Although slavery was abolished in the kingdom in 1962, the practice still flourishes there. Ranking Saudi religious authorities endorse slavery; for example, Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan insisted recently that “Slavery is a part of Islam” and whoever wants it abolished he called “an infidel.”...

Read it all. Lots of useful links in the original.

Sharia slavery update from AP, with thanks to Mackie:

A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.

Sexually assaulted? "And all married women (are forbidden unto you) save those (captives) whom your right hands possess." That is, slave girls. That's Qur'an 4:24.

A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Homaidan Al-Turki, 36, and his wife, Sarah Khonaizan, 35, on charges of forced labor, document servitude and harboring an illegal immigrant.

Al-Turki also faces state charges including kidnapping, false imprisonment and extortion, as well as 12 charges of sexual assault. His wife faces some of the same charges. The two could be sentenced to life in prison if convicted.

Phone messages left Friday for their individual lawyers were not immediately returned.

U.S. Attorney's Office spokesman Jeff Dorschner said the Indonesian woman, who is in her 20s, came to the United States with the couple legally to perform domestic chores. But her U.S. visa was hidden from her by Al-Turki and Khonaizan, according to Thursday's indictment.

The woman was controlled by "a climate of fear and intimidation" that included sexual abuse and the belief that she would "suffer serious harm" if she did not perform her tasks, the indictment said.

I Know Nothing! An update on this story, from Reuters.

DOHA - Qatar insisted its laws prohibited human trafficking and said it was not aware of any such rights violations on Sunday after the Gulf state was criticized in a U.S. report.

"These claims are totally unexpected and are something we disagree with completely," a senior Qatari official said.

"The laws of Qatar are strong and we have taken many steps to ensure equal rights for all. We are not aware of any human trafficking."

The State Department downgraded regional allies Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates in an annual report on Friday, making them subject to sanctions if they do not improve their records in three months.

Such sanctions have rarely been applied and would have little effect on the wealthy Gulf Arab oil producers.

The report said boys are trafficked to be used as camel jockeys in Qatar, while male and female domestic servants can fall victim to "involuntary servitude" through excessive work hours and the withholding of wages and passports.

Expatriates, mostly workers from Asian and Arab countries, make up more than 75 percent of Qatar's population of 800,000...

From Reuters via CNN with thanks to Two Stellas.

WASHINGTON -- The United States criticized four Gulf Arab allies as some of the world's worst offenders in permitting human trafficking Friday in a rebuke Washington hopes will promote improved human rights in the Middle East.

The State Department downgraded Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates to the lowest level of compliance in the report, which evaluates countries' efforts in fighting the trafficking of thousands of people forced into servitude or the sex trade every year.

Victims in the region were mainly domestic servants and laborers but also included boy camel jockeys, according to the report.

It cited the case of a 17-year-old orphan, Lusa, kidnapped from Uzbekistan and was sold into a slavery ring in UAE. She was eventually "no longer usable" as a prostitute and the emirates' immigration service said she should serve a two-year prison sentence for entering the country illegally.

Officials from the Gulf countries were not immediately available to comment on the one-step downgrade, which ranks them with such countries as Burma, North Korea and Sudan.

"This report shows that in this administration we will not pull our punches even with our friends. We appreciate their cooperation in other areas but they just don't have a good track record fighting this," a State Department official said on condition of anonymity...

A not so baffling update on this story from the Arab News, "New Twist in Nour Miyati Torture Case Baffles All"

JEDDAH -- The inquiry report in the case of the Indonesian maid, Nour Miyati, who accused her sponsor and his wife of torture came as a surprise to everyone.

Quoting a statement by the Riyadh governorate, the Saudi Press Agency reported on Friday that during questioning by investigators Miyati herself retracted earlier charges that she was tied up and tortured by her employer. Miyati has now been charged with making false allegations against her employer.

"We were not involved with the investigation and did not attend the questioning of Nour Miyati. We only found out the result from the newspapers, so we don't know yet why she changed her statement," M. Sukiarto, labor attaché at the Indonesian Embassy in Riyadh, told Arab News.

In March, Miyati in critical condition was taken to a Riyadh hospital by her sponsor; she had severe injuries causing gangrene to her fingers, toes and part of her right foot. Some of her fingers have been amputated.

She initially claimed that her sponsor had tied her up for a month in a bathroom and beat her severely, injuring her eyes and knocking out several of her teeth...

Uh, yeah. She probably did it to herself just to embarrass the Saudis..right.

From Arab News, with thanks to Twostellas:

JEDDAH, A 25-year-old Indonesian woman who came to Saudi Arabia as a guest worker will have several of her fingers, toes and part of her right foot amputated because of gangrene after being tied up for a month in a bathroom by her Saudi sponsor, who also apparently beat her severely, injuring her eye and knocking several of her teeth out.

The reason given was that the woman, who worked as a maid, had not finished cleaning the house. The Indonesian government is demanding justice as Riyadh police continue to investigate this disgusting crime....

Nour Miyati told Fathallah that her sponsor punished her because she had not finished her housecleaning completely. She also told the official that her hands and feet had been tied up and that she had been imprisoned in a bathroom for a month. She said her sponsor warned her not to talk to police or embassy officials.

The medical report showed that there had been no sexual
assault....

Gee, I guess by comparison to other Saudi slaves, she got off lucky.

That quotation comes from an Islamic discussion board (thanks to Susan). I'm all for clearing up misconceptions, too, so here is a bit of the discussion:

:sl:

some muslims have the misconception that slavery is abolished. certainly if this was an evil thing that had no benefit the righteous caliphs would have been the first to annul it. slavery in Islam is not the same as the west's slave trade. it is the states handling of the dependants of the men (that we were at battle with) that died... captives of war.

this is what nasiruddin says:

QUOTE
Islamic history of the last centuries is depressing, but one positive thing is that most Muslim states have abolished slavery. (Prophet Muhammad (sallalahi wa salam) stated that releasing a slave is an excellently good deed, hence it must be also a very good and valuable deed to liberate all slaves and to prohibit all slavery.)

I do not change deen, because this is no subject of belief itself, it is a subject of politics, society structure and Islamic law and we Muslims are ordered by Allah (ta'ala) to enforce justice, hence we must seek to clear our society of injustices and slavery is an injustice.

i want to see how many other people have this view of slavery being evil? and dont forget that the prophet :saa: captured slaves.


whynot Posted: May 31 2004, 15:51

And from the responses:

If Allaah enables the Muslim mujahideen to defeat kaafir enemies in war, then the men may be killed, ransomed, set free without ransom or enslaved. The choice between these four options is to be made by the ruler, according to what he thinks is the best course.

With regard to the women, they become slaves and "those whom one's right hand possesses" (described as a "right hand servant" in the question). Male children also become slaves. The ruler shares out these slaves among the mujaahideen.

Shaykh al-Shanqeeti (may Allaah have mercy on him) said: The reason why a person may be taken as a slave is his being a kaafir and waging war against Allaah and His Messenger. If Allaah enables the Muslims who are striving and sacrificing their lives and their wealth and all that Allaah has given them to make the word of Allaah supreme over the kaafirs, then He allows them to enslave the kuffaar when they capture them, unless the ruler chooses to free them or to ransom them, if that serves the interests of the Muslims.

Adwa' al-Bayaan, 3/387

Islam limited the sources of slaves which existed before the mission of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) to just one source, namely slavery resulting from capturing prisoners from among the kuffaar.

Islam treated female slaves more kindly in their enslavement than other cultures did. Their honour was not considered to be permissible to anyone by way of prostitution, which was the fate of female prisoners of war in most cases. Rather Islam made them the property of their masters alone, and forbade anyone else to also have intercourse with them, even if that was his son. Islam made it their right to become free through a contract of manumission; it encouraged setting them free and promised reward for that. Islam made setting slaves free an obligation in the case of some kinds of expiation (kafaarah), such as the expiation for accidental killing, zihaar (a jaahili form of divorce in which a man said to his wife, "You are to me as my mother's back"), and breaking oaths. They received the best treatment from their masters, as was enjoined by the pure sharee'ah.

Secondly:

A mujaahid does not have to be married in order to gain possession of a "slave whom one's right hand possesses." None of the scholars expressed such a view.

Thirdly:

If a mujaahid takes possession of a female slave or male slave, it is permissible for him to sell them. In either case - whether one acquires a slave through battle or through purchase - it is not permissible for a man to have intercourse with a female slave until she has had a period from which it may be ascertained that she is not pregnant. If she is pregnant then he must wait until she gives birth.

It was narrated that Ruwayfi' ibn Thaabit al-Ansaari said: I heard the Messenger of Allaah (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) say on the day of Hunayn: "It is not permissible for any man who believes in Allaah and the Last Day to irrigate the crop of another else - meaning to have intercourse with a woman who is pregnant. And it is not permissible for a man who believes in Allaah and the Last Day to have intercourse with a captured woman until he has established that she is not pregnant. And it is not permissible for a man who believes in Allaah and the Last Day to sell any booty until it has been shared out."

Narrated by Abu Dawood, 2158; classed as hasan by Shaykh al-Albaani in Saheeh Abi Dawood, 1890.

For many reasons, including the fact that the Muslims have long since given up jihad, slavery is now very rare. This means that the Muslims must be extra cautious by examining any case in which it is claimed that someone is a slave, whether male or female.

For more information see question no. 26067

And Allaah knows best.

Given up jihad?

Then some question the notion:

I can understand the keeping the pow's, but i dont understand the ability of men to have concubines. It seems to go against everything ive learned about Islam. Its having illegal sexual relations w/ a woman. The woman is not your wife. I dont think i can ever understand this.

And some responses:

uh shayrob?
what is Islam? submission to God
how do you know what is forbiden and allowed in Islam? you look at the Koran and Sunnah to find out.

So if you have evidences stating concubines are hallal then where is the confusion?
how is sex with concubine ilegal if Allah has allowed it?

:sl:

Din: I understand that but i just want to understand why its allowed b/c it doesnt seem like there is any morality in it. Why is dating haram while having a concubine halal?

hey thats where you go wrong

What is good? whatever Allah says is good
What is bad? whatever Allah says is bad
What is immoral? whatever Allah says is immoral
your way of thinking makes me wonder on how excactly do you understand Islamic Aqeda?
this is an ayat of Koran:
"There are things which you like that are bad for you,
and there are things which you hate that are good for you,
You dont know but Allah knows best."
So stick to this ayat brother and dont say something is immoral when Allah has allowed it,
well you can say it if you want, but you see if you think Allah's law is immoral then gess what he is going to think about you and your sins? and where you should belong.
I dont want to be sarcastic or rude brother, i just want to make you understand this important thing.

There is much more. You will find the whole thread illuminating.

In full accord with traditional Islamic laws governing warfare, a top aide to Muqtada al-Sadr has told Iraqi jihadists that if they capture female soldiers, they can keep them as slaves. From AP:

BASRA, Iraq - A senior aide of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr told worshippers during a Friday sermon in southern Iraq that anyone capturing a female British soldier can keep her as a slave.

The aide, Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, also called on supporters to launch jihad, or holy war, against British troops in this southern city.

He offered money to anyone capturing or killing a member of the Governing Council, the widely unpopular interim administration appointed by the U.S.-led occupation 10 months ago.

Al-Bahadli, al-Sadr's chief representative in southern Iraq, spoke at al-Hawi mosque in central Basra.

It was the first time any anti-occupation activist of note publicly offered financial reward for the killing or capturing of coalition troops.

That offer likely will be viewed by occupation authorities with concern at a time of rising anti-occupation sentiment and continuing fighting between al-Sadr's al-Mahdi Army militia and U.S. forces in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.

A wave of kidnappings last month saw scores of foreign nationals snatched by insurgents and shadowy groups across Iraq.

Al-Bahadli kept an assault rifle next to him as he spoke to an estimated 3,000 worshippers, occasionally lifting it as he screamed "jihad!," and "Allahu Akbar!," or "God is greatest!"

He held what he said were documents and photographs of three Iraqi women being raped at British-run prisons in Iraq.

He also accused British forces in Basra of failing to honor agreements not to patrol inside the city and to stop harassing al-Sadr supporters in Basra.

Al-Bahadli said 250,000 dinars -- about $350 -- will be given to anyone capturing a British soldier and 100,000 dinars -- or $150 -- to anyone killing one.

He also called on government departments in Basra to display pictures of al-Sadr in their offices.

In Fallujah, a Sunni hotbed of anti-occupation resistance west of Baghdad, an estimated 400 al-Sadr supporters from Najaf, Karbala and Baghdad prayed at one of the city's main Sunni mosques in a symbolic act of solidarity.

A press release from Christian Solidarity International:

Abyei Mou (Sudan), Nairobi, May 3, 2004. 56 boy slaves were liberated at the end of April from the cattle camps of Arab nomads in the borderlands between northern and southern Sudan. Their liberation was a joint action undertaken by CSI and the Arab-Dinka Peace Committee based at the borderland market town of Warawar. The boys had been abducted during government sponsored jihad slave raids against Black African, non-Muslim communities in northern Bahr El Ghazal.

Upon releasing the slaves, the head of the Baggara cattle camps between the Bahr el Arab and Lol Rivers, Shegir Al Agar, claimed that the boys had been very happy with their masters, whom they affectionately called "father." However, interviews with the boys revealed a clear pattern of physical and psychological abuse. They reported cases of beatings, stabbings, boy rape, racial insults, death threats, and forcible conversion to Islam.

A 12-year-old slave named Piol recalled: "My master (Ibrahim Mohammed) told me not to ask about my mother and father, and ordered me to call him 'father.' Whenever I displeased him, he beat me. Once he hit me on the head with a cow's horn. Another time, he burned me on the arm. Sometimes he refused to allow me to eat. Ibrahim's son, Khalid, also bullied me. He threw stones at me, and called me 'dog,' 'bastard,' and 'slave.' Ibrahim made me go to Koranic school. The teacher, Mohammed Razik, said that we should forget about the religion of our people and become Muslims. Otherwise, we would be infidels."

CSI encountered two slaves who were not released by their masters. Osman was in the bush looking after cows, and Majok Miir was making tea for cattle camp masters. Shegir Al Agar reported that there were many more slaves in the area. The Baggara will start moving their cows and slaves back to their home areas north of the Bahr El Arab River later this month when the rainy season begins. They had brought their cattle south of the river last February, during the dry season, in search of water and pasture land.

Slavery is an internationally recognized crime against humanity. In the spring of 2002, a U.S. government-sponsored international Eminent Persons Group charged Sudan's Islamist regime of using slavery as a weapon of war against Southern Sudan. At the beginning of his mission, U.S. Special Envoy for Peace in Sudan, former Sen. John Danforth, identified the eradication of slavery as a pre-condition for a just and lasting peace. However, the issue of slavery has not yet been placed on the agenda of the peace talks between the Government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army. CSI's President, Revd. Hans Stuckelberger, has pledged that "CSI will continue its campaign to eradicate slavery in Sudan until the last slave is free."

Contact: Stephen Crawford, Christian Solidarity International (CSI), 870 HampshireRoad, Westlake Village, CA, 91361: (805) 777 7107 tel, (805) 777 7508 fax, csi@csi-usa.org

Charles Jacobs of the American Anti-Slavery Group writes eloquently about modern jihad slavery in Sudan in the Forward.

It is during Passover that we Jews are most sharply reminded that we walk the earth as redeemed slaves. But while human bondage may for us be a thing of the distant past, for many others slavery is not a matter of history. This year, as we celebrate our redemption at Seder tables around the globe, there are by conservative estimate 27 million slaves serving masters on every continent.

One of the worst cases of slavery is in the African country of Sudan. There, a Taliban-like fundamentalist regime took power in 1989 and launched a jihad that revived the trade in black slaves. Until just a few months ago, when an American-initiated peace process established a shaky cease-fire, the Sudanese regime sent Arab militias to raid black villages in heavily Christian southern Sudan. They shot the men and captured the women and children. The latter group -- often raped and gang-raped at the point of capture -- were marched north, bought and sold, and often forcibly converted to a faith not their own. Estimates range from tens of thousands to more than 100,000 slaves still in captivity.

The war that has been raging in Sudan since 1983 has killed more than 2 million people and driven millions more from their homes. According to international aid experts, more than 100,000 were forcibly starved to death. Colin Powell told Congress in 2001 that there is "no greater tragedy on the face of the earth today" than Sudan.

Yet it was a long, arduous struggle to get the media to focus on Sudan and to get the public or an American administration to respond. No establishment human rights group has led a sustained campaign for the victims of slavery and slaughter in Sudan. Until prodded by scenes of modern-day abolitionists redeeming slaves on American television, Unicef, the world's most prominent protector of women and children, was quiet.

But thanks to pressure brought by an unlikely coalition that includes Christian and Jewish groups, the Congressional Black Caucus, black church leaders and secular activists, stopping the horror in Sudan is now American policy. After years of speeches, protests, op-eds, divestment campaigns and even arrests for acts of civil disobedience, this left-right coalition in 2002 got Congress to pass with near unanimity and the president to sign the Sudan Peace Act, which has funded a comprehensive American-led peace process.

The Southern People's Liberation Movement and the Sudanese government agreed to a cease-fire in 2002 and are now in the process of trying to negotiate a settlement. A settlement will not be easy. Antagonism between the Arab (and historically slaving) north and the black tribal south predates the decision of English mapmakers to paste them together into "Sudan." The list of items to be negotiated include power-sharing, the sharing of oil wealth, the nature of cultural autonomy, the political disposition of black enclaves in the north and the religious status of the capital, but the overarching issue is how -- or if -- these two civilizations should share a nation-state.

This already difficult task is made even tougher because the Sudanese regime will not acknowledge it took slaves. And State Department diplomats participating in negotiations have not made the liberation of the slaves a precondition. But if the slaves are not freed, there will be no peace.

Worse still, the Sudanese regime, its southern front now quiet, has launched a genocidal attack on Darfur, a largely black Muslim province in western Sudan, which also seeks cultural autonomy. U.N. workers report widespread abuses against civilians, including "killings, rape and the burning and looting of entire villages." A top USAID official calls Darfur "arguably the worst humanitarian crisis in Africa." A U.N. relief worker told journalists, "There is a systematic removal of populations of non-Arab origin."

And there is reason to think pro-government forces may be taking black Muslim slaves in Darfur. Human rights groups have documented mass abductions, particularly of children, by government-backed militias. A farmer from the village of Kishkish in Darfur told an Amnesty International worker that raiding militias cursed the African villagers: "you are black and you are... our slaves. Darfur is in our hands and you are our herders." In light of what is happening in Darfur, can we expect the peace in the South to hold? Will slave raids begin there anew?

Why is it so hard to get the media and the progressive activist community to care about the slavery and slaughter of blacks in North Africa, when they led the charge to free blacks from an arguably lesser horror in apartheid South Africa? Can it be that the South Sudanese were abandoned because they have the "wrong" oppressors? Have our progressive elites abandoned the principle of "Justice for All," marching instead only under banner "Not in My Name?" Is the only point expiation? Is evil committed by non-whites simply beside the point?

This Passover let us think about universal justice. Let us fight for the liberation of all slaves -- no matter who their masters may be. As Jews around the world sat at the Seder table this year, we asked the traditional Four Questions. We might well have added a fifth: What can we former slaves do to help those in bondage today?

Ali Osman Taha (AP)

374 victims of jihadist slavery have been freed. From Christian Solidarity International, with thanks to Freedom Now News:

WARAWAR, Sudan - Today, 374 slaves safely reached the market town of Warawar in SPLA-controlled Southern Sudan after a long and sometimes harrowing exodus from bondage in Northern Sudan. After crossing the Bahr-Al-Arab river they had been received by the local Dinka community and Christian Solidarity International (CSI) representatives.

Over the past three weeks 503 slaves - mainly women and children - were gathered from government-run camps in Northern Sudan. Most of the slaves had been held in these camps for between one and three years. The 374 slaves were tightly packed in open trucks, approx. 55 on each truck. The remaining 129 of the 503 slaves have not yet arrived.

The 374 slaves had been detained for more than one week in Meiram, near the border with Southern Sudan on account of threats from government-sponsored militias. Following an intervention by the World Union of Progressive Judaism at the UN Commission on Human Rights on March 28, the Government of Sudan provided a guarantee of security to enable the slave convoy to cross the border into Southern Sudan. However, at least one boy was reportedly re-abducted by his knife-wielding master as the convoy crossed the Bahr-Al-Arab River.

The arrival of the liberated slaves in Warawar was greeted with great rejoicing. The slave exodus was organized and led by James Aguer and other members of the Committe for the Eradication of the Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWAC) and members of the Warawar Arab-Dinka Peace Committee. CSI is providing humanitarian assistance to the now liberated slaves.

The Goverment of Sudan appears to be divided about the future repatriation of freed slaves. On the one hand the First Vice President Ali Osman Taha has reportedly made a commitment to fund CEAWAC for another 12 months. However according to witnesses the presidential advisor Mubarak al-Fadil al-Madhi declared at a mass rally in Meiram on 31 March that funding for CEAWAC would be terminated by the end of May. Moreover, he was reported to have declared his opposition to the repatriation of child slaves who were fathered by their masters.

The prevailing cultural paradigm, ably exploited by Muslim spokesmen, casts Westerners as the perennial culprit -- colonialism, slavery -- and "non-white" people as the perennial victims. This construction, of course, glosses over the sorry history of Islamic dhimmitude and slavery. It is useful to note these things today because of the political uses that to which such whitewashes of history are being put. It is also useful to remember that the theological and legal justifications within Islam that allowed for this slavery persist today -- notably in Sudan and Mauritania. It is important to note that these justifications aren't based on race, but on religion; hence the book's title: Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters.

Now a new book challenges the whitewashes and sets the record straight. From The Guardian, with thanks to Twostellas:

North African pirates abducted and enslaved more than 1 million Europeans between 1530 and 1780 in a series of raids which depopulated coastal towns from Sicily to Cornwall, according to new research. Thousands of white Christians were seized every year to work as galley slaves, labourers and concubines for Muslim overlords in what is today Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, it is claimed.

Scholars have long known of the slave raids on Europe. But American historian Robert Davis has calculated that the total number captured - although small compared with the 12 million Africans shipped to the Americas in later years - was far higher than previously recognised.

His new book, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, concluded that 1 million to 1.25 million ended up in bondage.

Prof Davis's unorthodox methodology split historians over whether his estimates were plausible but they welcomed any attempt to fill a gap in the little-known story of Africans subjugating Europeans.

By collating different sources of information from Europe over three centuries, the University of Ohio professor has painted a picture of a continent at the mercy of pirates from the Barbary Coast, known as corsairs, who sailed in lanteen-rigged xebecs and oared galleys.

Villages and towns on the coast of Italy, Spain, Portugal and France were hardest hit but the raiders also seized people in Britain, Ireland and Iceland. According to one account they even captured 130 American seamen from ships that they boarded in the Atlantic and Mediterranean between 1785 and 1793.

In the absence of detailed written records such as customs forms Prof Davis decided to extrapolate from the best records available indicating how many slaves were at a particular location at a single time and calculate how many new slaves were needed to replace those who died, escaped or were freed.

To keep the slave population stable, around one quarter had to be replaced each year, which for the period 1580 to 1680 meant around 8,500 new slaves per annum, totalling 850,000.

The same methodology would suggest 475,000 were abducted in the previous and following centuries.

"Much of what has been written gives the impression that there were not many slaves and minimises the impact that slavery had on Europe," Prof Davis said in a statement this week.

"Most accounts only look at slavery in one place, or only for a short period of time. But when you take a broader, longer view, the massive scope of this slavery and its powerful impact become clear."

Prof Davis conceded his methodology was not ideal but Ian Blanchard, professor of economic history at the University of Edinburgh and an authority on trade in Africa, said yesterday that the numbers appeared to add up.

"We are talking about statistics which are not real, all the figures are estimates. But I don't find that absolute figure of 1 million at all surprising. It makes total sense."

The arrival of gold from the Americas and the shipping of slaves from west Africa squeezed the traditional business of the Barbary merchant fleet which was transporting gold and slaves from southern to northern Africa, so they turned their gaze to Europe, said Prof Blanchard.

Slaving

However David Earle, author of The Corsairs of Malta and Barbary and The Pirate Wars, said that Prof Davis may have erred in extrapolating from 1580-1680 because that was the most intense slaving period: "His figures sound a bit dodgy and I think he may be exaggerating."

Dr Earle also cautioned that the picture was clouded by the fact the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe and black people from west Africa. "I wouldn't hazard a guess about the total."

According to one estimate, 7,000 English people were abducted between 1622-1644, many of them ships' crews and passengers. But the corsairs also landed on unguarded beaches, often at night, to snatch the unwary.

Almost all the inhabitants of the village of Baltimore, in Ireland, were captured in 1631, and there were other raids in Devon and Cornwall.

Reverend Devereux Spratt recorded being captured by "Algerines" while crossing the Irish sea from Cork to England in April 1641 and in 1661 Samuel Pepys wrote about two men, Captain Mootham and Mr Dawes, who were also abducted.

Last year it was announced that one of the richest treasure wrecks found off the coast of Devon was a 16th-century Barbary ship en route to catch English slaves.

Although the black Africans enslaved and shipped to North and South America over four centuries outnumbered Prof Davis's estimates of white European taken to Africa by 12-1, it is probable they shared the same grim conditions.

"One of the things that both the public and many scholars have tended to take as given is that slavery was always racial in nature - that only blacks have been slaves. But that is not true," said the author.

In comments which may stoke controversy, he said that white slavery had been minimised or ignored because academics preferred to treat Europeans as evil colonialists rather than as victims.

While Africans laboured on sugar and cotton plantations the European slaves were put to work in quarries, building sites and galleys and endured malnutrition, disease and maltreatment.

Ruling pashas, entitled to an eighth of all captured Christians, housed them in overcrowded baths known as baños and used them for public works such as building harbours and cutting trees. They were given loaves of black bread and water.

The pasha's female captives were more likely to be regarded as hostages to be bargained for ransom but many worked as attendants in the palace harem while awaiting payment and freedom, which in some cases never came. Some slaves bought by private individuals were well treated and became companions, others were overworked and beaten.

"The most unlucky ended up stuck and forgotten out in the desert, in some sleepy town such as Suez, or in the Turkish sultan's galleys, where some slaves rowed for decades without ever setting foot on shore," said Prof Davis, whose book is published in the US by Palgrave Macmillan.

Writes Donna Hughes in FrontPage magazine: "A measure of Islamic fundamentalists' success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women." And since they find their justifications for suppressing the freedom and rights of women in the Sharia, this bodes ill for non-Muslims also: the freedom and rights of dhimmis are severely restricted in the Sharia as well.

A measure of Islamic fundamentalists' success in controlling society is the depth and totality with which they suppress the freedom and rights of women. In Iran for 25 years, the ruling mullahs have enforced humiliating and sadistic rules and punishments on women and girls, enslaving them in a gender apartheid system of segregation, forced veiling, second-class status, lashing, and stoning to death.

Joining a global trend, the fundamentalists have added another way to dehumanize women and girls: buying and selling them for prostitution. Exact numbers of victims are impossible to obtain, but according to an official source in Tehran, there has been a 635 percent increase in the number of teenage girls in prostitution. The magnitude of this statistic conveys how rapidly this form of abuse has grown. In Tehran, there are an estimated 84,000 women and girls in prostitution, many of them are on the streets, others are in the 250 brothels that reportedly operate in the city. The trade is also international: thousands of Iranian women and girls have been sold into sexual slavery abroad.

The head of Iran's Interpol bureau believes that the sex slave trade is one of the most profitable activities in Iran today. This criminal trade is not conducted outside the knowledge and participation of the ruling fundamentalists. Government officials themselves are involved in buying, selling, and sexually abusing women and girls.

Many of the girls come from impoverished rural areas. Drug addiction is epidemic throughout Iran, and some addicted parents sell their children to support their habits. High unemployment 28 percent for youth 15-29 years of age and 43 percent for women 15-20 years of age is a serious factor in driving restless youth to accept risky offers for work. Slave traders take advantage of any opportunity in which women and children are vulnerable. For example, following the recent earthquake in Bam, orphaned girls have been kidnapped and taken to a known slave market in Tehran where Iranian and foreign traders meet.

Popular destinations for victims of the slave trade are the Arab countries in the Persian Gulf. According to the head of the Tehran province judiciary, traffickers target girls between 13 and 17, although there are reports of some girls as young as 8 and 10, to send to Arab countries. One ring was discovered after an 18 year-old girl escaped from a basement where a group of girls were held before being sent to Qatar, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. The number of Iranian women and girls who are deported from Persian Gulf countries indicates the magnitude of the trade. Upon their return to Iran, the Islamic fundamentalists blame the victims, and often physically punish and imprison them. The women are examined to determine if they have engaged in "immoral activity." Based on the findings, officials can ban them from leaving the country again.

Police have uncovered a number of prostitution and slavery rings operating from Tehran that have sold girls to France, Britain, Turkey as well. One network based in Turkey bought smuggled Iranian women and girls, gave them fake passports, and transported them to European and Persian Gulf countries. In one case, a 16-year-old girl was smuggled to Turkey, and then sold to a 58-year-old European national for $20,000.

In the northeastern Iranian province of Khorasan, local police report that girls are being sold to Pakistani men as sex-slaves. The Pakistani men marry the girls, ranging in age from 12 to 20, and then sell them to brothels called "Kharabat" in Pakistan. One network was caught contacting poor families around Mashad and offering to marry girls. The girls were then taken through Afghanistan to Pakistan where they were sold to brothels.
In the southeastern border province of Sistan Baluchestan, thousands of Iranian girls reportedly have been sold to Afghani men. Their final destinations are unknown.

One factor contributing to the increase in prostitution and the sex slave trade is the number of teen girls who are running away from home. The girls are rebelling against fundamentalist imposed restrictions on their freedom, domestic abuse, and parental drug addictions. Unfortunately, in their flight to freedom, the girls find more abuse and exploitation. Ninety percent of girls who run away from home will end up in prostitution. As a result of runaways, in Tehran alone there are an estimated 25,000 street children, most of them girls. Pimps prey upon street children, runaways, and vulnerable high school girls in city parks. In one case, a woman was discovered selling Iranian girls to men in Persian Gulf countries; for four years, she had hunted down runaway girls and sold them. She even sold her own daughter for US$11,000.

Given the totalitarian rule in Iran, most organized activities are known to the authorities. The exposure of sex slave networks in Iran has shown that many mullahs and officials are involved in the sexual exploitation and trade of women and girls. Women report that in order to have a judge approve a divorce they have to have sex with him. Women who are arrested for prostitution say they must have sex with the arresting officer. There are reports of police locating young women for sex for the wealthy and powerful mullahs.

In cities, shelters have been set-up to provide assistance for runaways. Officials who run these shelters are often corrupt; they run prostitution rings using the girls from the shelter. For example in Karaj, the former head of a Revolutionary Tribunal and seven other senior officials were arrested in connection with a prostitution ring that used 12 to 18 year old girls from a shelter called the Center of Islamic Orientation.

Other instances of corruption abound. There was a judge in Karaj who was involved in a network that identified young girls to be sold abroad. And in Qom, the center for religious training in Iran, when a prostitution ring was broken up, some of the people arrested were from government agencies, including the Department of Justice.

The ruling fundamentalists have differing opinions on their official position on the sex trade: deny and hide it or recognize and accommodate it. In 2002, a BBC journalist was deported for taking photographs of prostitutes. Officials told her: "We are deporting you ... because you have taken pictures of prostitutes. This is not a true reflection of life in our Islamic Republic. We don't have prostitutes." Yet, earlier the same year, officials of the Social Department of the Interior Ministry suggested legalizing prostitution as a way to manage it and control the spread of HIV. They proposed setting-up brothels, called "morality houses," and using the traditional religious custom of temporary marriage, in which a couple can marry for a short period of time, even an hour, to facilitate prostitution. Islamic fundamentalists' ideology and practices are adaptable when it comes to controlling and using women.

Some may think a thriving sex trade in a theocracy with clerics acting as pimps is a contradiction in a country founded and ruled by Islamic fundamentalists. In fact, this is not a contradiction. First, exploitation and repression of women are closely associated. Both exist where women, individually or collectively, are denied freedom and rights. Second, the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran are not simply conservative Muslims. Islamic fundamentalism is a political movement with a political ideology that considers women inherently inferior in intellectual and moral capacity. Fundamentalists hate women's minds and bodies. Selling women and girls for prostitution is just the dehumanizing complement to forcing women and girls to cover their bodies and hair with the veil.

In a religious dictatorship like Iran, one cannot appeal to the rule of law for justice for women and girls. Women and girls have no guarantees of freedom and rights, and no expectation of respect or dignity from the Islamic fundamentalists. Only the end of the Iranian regime will free women and girls from all the forms of slavery they suffer.

Mende Nazer, former slave

Slavery is taken for granted in the Qur'an, and is still practiced in the Islamic world -- most notoriously in Sudan, from which this report comes. It is of interest to those who are concerned about the equality of rights of all people in Islamic societies as an example of the fact that Muslim radicals will enforce Sharia in its fullness, including its institutionalized discrimination against non-Muslim dhimmis and women. This report comes from BBC News, with thanks to FreedomNowNews:

On the surface, Mende Nazer is a bright, bubbly, confident young woman, quick to break into a beautiful infectious smile, which lights up her whole face.

Nothing to suggest that she spent eight years of her life as a slave after being captured from her village in Sudan's Nuba Mountains.

But the smile soon disappears when she talks about her past and her eyes start to well up with tears.

"I still have nightmares," she told BBC News Online in London three years after she managed to escape to freedom.

'Unclean'

She was just 12 when one night her village was targeted by Arab slave raiders, who snatched her away from her loving family to be a slave in far away Khartoum.

The story of her capture and life in servitude, published in her book Slave, reads like something from the Middle Ages but it happened in the early 1990s and she says this is still the lot of many young girls from southern Sudan.

She worked from first thing in the morning until late at night, washing, cleaning and ironing, without any pay or days off, sleeping in a locked shed in the garden.

At first, her mistress thought she was unclean and diseased, so she wouldn't let Mende touch the children.

But after a while, looking after the children and cooking for the family were added to her list of duties.

She only ate the scraps left by her mistress' family - "like an animal," she said.

Eating these leftovers on her own in the kitchen was particularly demeaning for her, as sharing food is a central part of her Nuba culture, where no-one eats alone.

She was often beaten and on one occasion, after preparing fried eggs instead of poached eggs, her mistress "seized the ladle out of the frying pan, and thrust the burning hot metal against my forearm.

"I cried out in agony, as she ground it, sizzling, into my skin," she wrote.

Her left arm is still badly scarred.

'Terrified'

This is the life she was leading at the start of the 21st century.

Then, a train of events began which would eventually lead to her freedom.

Her mistress's sister, married to a Sudanese diplomat in London, had twins, so she was "given" to her to help her out.

"Well, it's easy for us to get you another abda [slave]... whereas I understand it's impossible for people to find one in London," the wife of a slave-dealer told her mistress.

Her new "owners" returned on holiday to Sudan, leaving her in the custody of some colleagues and she realised this was her chance to escape.

But she spoke no English and had no concept of claiming asylum or how to survive in a bustling city of eight million people.

She went up to anyone she saw on London's streets who looked like they could be from southern Sudan and greeted them in Arabic.

After receiving endless quizzical looks and dismissals, she found someone working in a garage from Sudan and who knew someone from the Nuba Mountains.

A few days later, they waited for her outside her owner's house and told her to run away.

What was that first taste of freedom like?

"I was terrified that they would come and capture me again," she says.

After eight years of being beaten and threatened into submission, physical freedom was one thing, mental emancipation would take far longer.

Family reunion

When she first escaped, her family was taken to Khartoum and told to try and persuade her to return home.

They were told she had been kidnapped and forced to renounce Islam and convert to Christianity.

But once the family spoke to her, she was able to tell them her true story and is now in regular contact with them.

But she can't go to Sudan and so once every three months or so, her mother makes a day-long trip by lorry from her village to a town where there is a telephone, so they can talk.

She hopes one day to meet them again - if she can get them to another country.

Although Slave has already been published in Germany, she says she is worried that the publicity surrounding its release in the UK might cause more trouble for her family.

"I could keep quiet because I've had my freedom but while others are still in slavery in Sudan, a part of me is, too," she says.

Launching the book and traipsing from one media interview to another, stoking up all the painful memories, is hugely stressful but she says this is the one thing she can do to help those she left behind.

Last year, a study estimated that more than 11,000 southern Sudanese had been abducted in 20 years, many of whom probably remain in bondage.

Slavery, a state of life closely akin to and intertwined with dhimmitude, is alive and well in the Islamic world. This report comes from Sandro Magister in Chiesa:

"Sudan's first saint, Iosephina Bakhita, was canonized by John Paul II in the year 2000. From an early age she was made a slave, sold and resold at the El Obeid and Khartoum markets. She was fortunate to have ended up in Italy. It was in 1890 that she was finally freed and baptized.

"Yet today, more than a century later, there are still slaves found between the Sahara and the Nile. What's more, it is slavery having its basis in Islam, inheritor of the trade which for centuries has forcibly sent 11-14 million Africans from the sub-Sahara region to Arab and Muslim countries.

"Little is studied or said about the trade, the opposite being true of slave trade directed toward the Americas. The last general assembly of the African Catholic bishops conferences took place in Dakar in October 2003, where a session was dedicated to the issue, being introduced by statements such as the following:

"'Analyses of this issue have been prohibited at length. One cause of the paralysis of this historical conscience has been the attitude of many intellectuals and Muslim rulers regarding the trans-Saharan trade. For reasons of religious sensitivity they don't want to properly admit to Arab and Islamic responsibility in this drama, whose evil effects still continue. Today in the Arab world the word 'black' simply means 'slave.' The tracks of the trans-Saharan trade have formed geographic roads leading to Maghreb and the Middle East.'

"The past is like the present. On one of these roads - currently used by numerous Africans from Senegal, Mali, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, and Camerun - black emigrants converge to Niger and from there, from Agadez, they face the hard desert until reaching the Libyan coastline. From there they set off for Italy and Europe. In Italy's largest daily, 'Corriere della Sera', one of its correspondents, Fabrizio Gatti, recounted cases of 21st century slavery which he ran across as part of a five-part special report published this past Dec. 24-Jan. 2.

"Along the emigrants' current trans-Saharan route is the Dirkou oasis in Niger, the epicenter of slavery found upon crossing the Téneré desert. Illegal emigrants arrive there broke, having been robbed of everything by soldiers placed at numerous road blocks. Thus, Fabrizio Gatti writes:

"'In order not to die of hunger they work for free in the homes of merchants or in palm groves. They wash pans, do gardening and yard work, gather dates and make bricks. All in exchange for a bowl of millet, noodles, coffee and some cigarettes. Their desire was to reach Italy, but became slaves instead. It is only after months of hard work that the owner lets them go, paying them finally a ticket to Libya: 25,000 African francs or 38.50 euro. Their fear is ending up like those who have been held prisoners for more than a year, who have gone mad and live in the bush.'

"And what is the thinking behind this new slave trade? An infantry corporal with 'Arab looks and surname' explained to the 'Corriere' correspondent, pointing to blacks kneeling in the sand:

"'We already prayed to Allah that they continue playing their drums and eat among themselves like animals. Those over there are not like us. If they can pay their passage to Italy, it means they are rich. They are right in leaving something behind in Niger, something for us who haven't the money to leave.'

"The reporter commented:

"'It's an old story. Arabs and black living along the Niger consider inhabitants of Africa's coasts to be simply inferior. Once they used to cross the Ténéré and Sahara along the same route to buy and resell them as slaves. Today, worse than animals, they pile them into trucks. In comparison, goats and camels ride first class, having room to lay down, hay to eat and water to drink.'

"'East of Niger lays Chad. And after crossing the Nile, one comes to Sudan, a country with a long history of civil war between the Arab and Muslim north (the power holders) and the black, non-Islamicized south. In Sudan slavery continues to be not only practiced by dominant Arabs, but also theorized on the basis of the Koran.'

"A book published in London in June 2003 by the British institute, Civitas, reports that in black populated areas of Sudan, like Bahr El-Ghazal, the Nuba mountains, South Kordofan and Darfur, there are reoccurring raids conducted by armed Arab groups 'to kill most of the men and to abduct women and children into slavery.'

"The book contains testimony by women and children who escaped from slavery and evidences that in the 1990s the practice was encouraged by the National Islamic Front, the leading party in Khartoum headed by Hassan Al-Turabi, an important leader in the Islamic world:

"'Leading NIF figures mobilized the local Arab tribesmen; encouraged them to participate in the jihad; promised them the right to keep slaves as the bounty of war, assuring them that it is justified in the Koran, as a means of conversion to Islam; and provided logistical back-up on 'slave raids' with provisions of horses, weapons and troops.'

"One of the book's authors, Baroness Caroline Cox, is a member and former vice president of the House of Lords - Great Britain's high political assembly. In her first trip to Sudan, Baroness Cox went to a village called Nyamlell in the Bahr El-Ghazal region, where just before her arrival 80 men and 2 women were killed and 283 women and children were abducted as slaves. Afterward, she made another twenty or so trips to Sudan, often in forbidden areas while gathering ever more detailed documentation.

"The book also contains interviews with Arab slave traders, who sustain that the shari'a (Islamic law) authorizes them to enslave children and relatives of men with whom they are at war. They state that they sell slaves to Arabs in other countries.

"A former slave from Karko in the Nuba mountains, Mende Nazer, told her story in a book published last year in German (now in English). Captured in 1992, she was first a slave to a rich family from Khartoum and, then in 2000, to a Sudanese diplomat in London, from whom she escaped seeking political asylum."

Charles Jacobs, president of the American Anti-Slavery Group, and John Eibner, assistant to the international president of Christian Solidarity International, report in the Washington Times on a ray of hope in Sudan, where Christians have been enslaved and brutalized by Muslims for years:

"For the first time in 20 years, Southern Sudan stands on the threshold of peace. The guns are silent. Slave raiding is suspended. Humanitarian aid is flowing. Plans for reconstruction are on the drawing board. Secretary of State Colin Powell expects a comprehensive peace agreement before the end of the year.

"This is a ray of hope in a long, dark night of despair: More than 2 million have perished; more than 4 million have been displaced; and tens of thousands of women and children have been enslaved in Khartoum's declared jihad against the non-Muslims of Southern Sudan. . . .

"Success is within reach. The United States has already pressured and cajoled the belligerents -- the government of Sudan and the Sudan People's Liberation Army (PLA)-- into accepting a settlement based on sound principles: autonomous, Shariah-free self-government for Southern Sudan; and a referendum on independence for Southern Sudan at the end of a six-year interim period."

All is not resolved, as the piece makes clear. But real progress has been made. Let's hope it holds.

"Slavery is a part of Islam," says a leading Saudi government cleric. "Slavery is part of jihad, and jihad will remain as long there is Islam."

And he is the author of textbooks that are used to teach Muslim students in Saudi Arabia and the United States.

The Saudi Information Agency reports that

leading government cleric Sheikh Saleh Al-Fawzan is the author of the religious books currently used to teach 5 million Saudi students, both within the [Kingdom] and in Saudi schools aboard - including those in the Washington, D.C. metro area.

The slick Saudi flack "Adel Al-Jubeir and other officials have repeatedly claimed religious curriculums are being reformed, but Al-Fawzan's books continued to be used according to the minister of education's statements published by Al-Watan daily September 14th, 2003."

This may be because Sheikh Saleh has friends in high places:

Al-Fawzan is member of the Senior Council of Clerics, Saudi Arabia's highest religious body, a member of the Council of Religious Edicts and Research, the Imam of Prince Mitaeb Mosque in Riyadh, and a professor at Imam Mohamed Bin Saud Islamic University, the main Wahhabi center of learning in the country.

The Sheikh has little use for the apologetic arguments of Muslim moderates:

Al-Fawzan refuted the mainstream Muslim interpretation that Islam worked to abolish slavery by introducing equality between the races. 'They are ignorant, not scholars,' he said of people who express such opinions. 'They are merely writers. Whoever says such things is an infidel.'

It gets worse:

Al-Fawzan's most famous book, 'Al-Tawheed - Monotheism', is taught to Saudi high school students. In it, he says that most Muslims are polytheists, and their blood and money are therefore free for the taking by 'true Muslims.'

Note one thing: the controversial aspect of this is his classification, in Wahhabi fashion, of most Muslims as polytheists. Not in dispute, at least in terms of classic Islamic jurisprudence, is the principle that the blood and money of polytheists are free for the taking by Muslims.

[Al-Fawzan] is also is a leading opponent of those who seek to introduce change to the Saudi school curriculum. He also claimed that elections and demonstrations are western imitations.

Certainly there is no broad Islamic tradition of elections and demonstrations. (Thanks to Little Green Footballs).

In Islam Unveiled I explain the theological and legal reasons why slavery persists in some Islamic societies -- notably Mauritania and Sudan. I had a little bit of information on slavery in Saudi Arabia in there but for reasons I don't recall it didn't make the final draft. Still, slavery was only abolished in Saudi Arabia in 1962, and there are numerous indications that it continues today -- including this ad in Saudi paper (which I saw thanks to LGF) offering a 1991 Dodge for a "female servant" from Sri Lanka or India.

And why not? It's taken for granted in the Qur'an (see Suras 2:178, 2:221, 4:92, 5:89, and many more), and that is the foundation of Saudi society. It is also a cornerstone of the oppression of non-Muslims dhimmis, who throughout history have often been enslaved or treated as slaves by their Muslim overlords. The fact that such laws are still on the books ought to be the first concern of human rights organizations worldwide.