SLAVE MARKETS.

Putaruru Press, Volume VII, Issue 294, 27 June 1929, Page 3

SLAVE MARKETS.

STILL ACTIVE IN THE ORIENT. The s’ave traffic, notwithstanding resoiutibns passed by the League of Nations, is still operat ng in the Orient. Reports just published say some 2000 blacks each year are brought from Africa into the Arab slave markets. The trade in human beings extends over the Sudan, Abyssinia, the Hejaz, the Nejd, the Yemen, and the coast of Somaliland. Even in Thansjordan it is not altogether unknown; sheiks there have black attendants who serve all their lives without payment. In Arabia proper slave trading goes on fairly openly. The Hejaz government levies a toll of 10 dollars per cap'ta on slaves. In Djedda, the port of Mecca, the slave market is but 250 feet from the consulate of one of the great European powers. In Haibar, to the north of Med na, there are semi-black Moslem tribes, the descendants of Jewish people, who were subjected centuries ago to the Arabs and have been treated as slaves ever since. They have not long been intermixing with negro tribes. King Ibn Saud himself, powerful ch ef of desert tribesmen, has a bodyguard of 120 slaves. In the war against King Hussein of the Hejaz he had to put his slaves to digging trenches, for his Wahabis refused to do that work. In the Yemen, the number of slaves is computed to be as high as that of the free men. This computation includes 40,000 Jews who belong to Imam Yeh : a, the ruler of the land, or to the sheiks of the various districts. Like serfs of the Middle Ages they may not migrate without payment of a heavy ransom. There is scarcely a Moslem family in the Yemen that has not at least one slave. Wealthier families have as many as four or five. Most of the slaves are drawn from Africa. The blacks are brought across the Red Sea in small vessels and packed in troops of 20 and 30. On J land ng they are started along the Pilgrims’ road to Mecca, sometimes journeying with the pilgrims themselves.