Red Sea slave trade

The slave trade from Africa to Arabia via the Red Sea had ancient roots. In the 9th-century, slaves were transported from the Red Sea slave trade to Jeddah, Mecca and Medina, and by caravan over the desert to Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate.[2][3] The slave trade was still going on a thousand years later, when it was noted by Western travellers.

Richard Francis Burton described the slave market in Medina in the 1850s:

"The bazar at Al-Madinah is poor and as almost all the salves are brought from Meccah by the Jallabs or drivers after exporting the best to Egypt the town receives only the refuse.... some of these slaves come from Abyssinia: the greater part are driven from the Galla country and exported at the harbours of the Somali coast, Berberah, Tajoura and Zayla. As many as 2000 slaves from the former place, and 4000 from the later, are annually shipped off to Mocha, Jeddah, Suez and Maskat. [...] It is a large street roofed with matting and full of coffee-houses. The merchandise sat in rows parallel with the walls. The prettiest girls occupied the highest benches. Below were the plainer sort and lowest of all the boys. They were all gaily dressed in pink and other light-colored muslins with transparent veiles over their heads; and whether from the effect of such unusual splendor or from the re-action succeeding to their terrible land-journey and sea-voyage, they appeared perfectly happy."[4]

According to a British report, 320 slaves were shipped via the Red Sea slave trade to Jeddah in May 1879.[5]

After World War I, the East coast of the Red Sea formed an independent nation as the Kingdom of Hejaz (1916–1925). Hejaz did not consider itself obliged to obey the laws and treaties signed by the Ottoman Empire in regard to slavery and slave trade. During the Interwar period, the Kingdom of Hejaz was internationally known as a regional slave trade center.

The British fought the slave trade by patrolling the Red Sea. However, these controls were not effective, since the slave traders would inform the European Colonial authorities that the slaves were their wives, children, servants or fellow Hajj pilgrims, and the victims themselves were convinced of the same, unaware that they were being shipped as slaves.[6]^: 88–90

Since the British Consulate had opened in Jeddah in the 1870s, the British had used their diplomatic privileges to manumit the slaves escaping to the British Consulate to ask for asylum.[6]^: 93–96 Royal slaves were exempted from this right. The French, Italian and Dutch Consulate also used their right to manumit the slaves who reached their consulate to ask for asylum. However, the activity of France and Italy was very limited, and only the Dutch were as willing to use this right as much as Britain. The right for manumission by seeking asylum could be used by any slave who managed to reach the consul office or a ship belonging to a foreign power. Most slaves who used this right were citizens of these nations' colonies, who had travelled to Arabia without being aware that they would be sold as slaves upon arrival. The manumission activity of the foreign consuls was met with formal cooperation by the Arabian authorities but greatly disliked by the local population, and it was common for slaves seeking asylum to disappear between seeking asylum and the moment the consul could arrange a place for them on a boat.[6]^: 93–96

The slavery and slave trade in the Arabian Peninsula, and particular in Saudi Arabia (Kingdom of Hejaz), attracted attention by the League of Nations and contributed to the creation of the 1926 Slavery Convention, obliging the British to combat the slave trade in the area.[6]

Between 1928 and 1931, the British consulate in Jeddah helped 81 people to be manumitted, 46 of whom were repatriated to Sudan and 25 to Massawa in Ethiopia.[6]^{: 179–183} The vast majority of slaves originated from Africa, but the fact that the majority of them had been trafficked as children posed a problem for the authorities. They could not remember exactly where they had come from or where their family lived, could no longer speak any language other than Arabic, and thus had difficulty supporting themselves after repatriation, all of which in the 1930s had caused a reluctance from the authorities to receive them.[6]^{: 179–193}

In 1936, Saudi Arabia formally banned the import of slaves who were not already slaves prior to entering the kingdom, a reform which was however on paper only.

After World War II, there was growing international pressure from the United Nations to end the slave trade. In 1948, the United Nations declared slavery to be a crime against humanity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, after which the Anti-Slavery Society pointed out that there was about one million slaves in the Arabian Peninsula, which was a crime against the 1926 Slavery Convention, and demanded that the UN form a committee to handle the issue.[6]^: 310

In 1962, Saudi Arabia abolished slavery officially; however, unofficial slavery is rumored to exist.[7][8][9]

The same year, 1962, slavery was banned in Yemen as well, followed by Oman in 1970.

Research has indicated links between the Red Sea slave trade and female genital mutilation.[10] An investigation combining contemporary from data on slave shipments from 1400 to 1900 with data from 28 African countries has found that women belonging to ethnic groups historically victimized by the Red Sea slave trade were “significantly” more likely to suffer genital mutilation in the 21st-century, as well as “more in favour of continuing the practice”.[11] [12] Women trafficked in the Red Sea slave trade were sold as concubines (sex slaves) in the Islamic Middle East up until as late as in the mid 20th-century, and the practice of infibulation was used to temporarily signal the virginity of girls, increasing their value on the slave market: “According to descriptions by early travellers, infibulated female slaves had a higher price on the market because infibulation was thought to ensure chastity and loyalty to the owner and prevented undesired pregnancies”. [13][14]

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  Slavery and the slave trade in Africa (1893) (14590725929)
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  Boarding a Slave Dhow, W L Wyllie RA
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  Slaves released RMG E9094
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  Slaves captured from a dhow RMG E9081 (cropped)