SLAVERY STILL LINGERS

Hokitika Guardian, 30 August 1929, Page 2

SLAVERY STILL LINGERS

CUSTOM HOLDS IN' THE EAST. Slavery, which still exists in many Asiatic and African countries, has been abolished by the Ma.ns, the Persian National Assembly. The Majlis acted on the appeal of the Persian people, many of \\ ndm objected to this ancient cast. m. It is hoped that the action of the Majlis will influence other Oriental countries to do away with slavery.

Inland China, with its huge population, has perhaps the largest number of slaves in any country. In China many of the slaves are girls who were “adopted” when very young and trained in • household duties. Slave marts are said to do a thriving business in some of the more inaoessibie parts of China, and it is estimated that that country has 2,000,0.-0 slaves. Of the slaves in Arabia, a majority were born in bondage and they regard themselves as better than the ordinary tribesmen. They are found in the household of s one emir or tribal chief and are well fed and protected. In the great desert districts to the Arabian Peninsula almost every household of any pretension has its slaves, and in some cases they follow the professions of their master,?', often rising to positions of honour and distinction. Slaves that are found in Hasa, Koweit, and Uman, the Amman provinces on the Persian Gulf, are the negroes brought from Africa by Arab traders before the World "War, Arrangement has been made with the King of the Hejaz whereby slaves sold in Arabia have a right of sanctuary with the European consuls at Jeddah.

Gone are the days when Morocco, Tunis, and Algiers were slave marts, nut only for negroes, hut for Circassian and Georgian beauties.' The famous slave trade of the Barbary Coast is a thing of the past,- 1 and, although there is still some slave trading, the buying and selling of human property is frowned upon. The French Government has shown disapproval of the slave marts, though slaves are bought on the oases in the Northern African desert. In Kufra, in the Libyan Desert, blacks are smuggled in from Sudan and sold for large sums. The Tuaregs, an adventurous warlike people, obtain their slaves front the Southern Sahara, but the slave raids and slave caravans are growing fewer in these parts. Slavery is disappearing in the? Sudan and it is only in the remote parts that it still exists. The section which is now the Anglo-Egvptian Sudan • was ihe area for slave traffic for hundreds of years, and it was from Jiere that the giant blacks were procured as guardians of the harems.

The great surviving stronghold of slavery in Africa is Ethiopia, which lies’south-east of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan. The traffic is so great and slaves are so plentiful and .cheap that even the servants have thir own personal attendants. The King, Ras Taffari, is trying to abolish slavery, but - time is needed to educate the Ethiopians to regard slavery as undesirable. It is estimated that there are s-ill more than 2,000,000 slaves, in Ethiopia.