Simon Deng

A Sudanese refugee, he was enslaved at the age of nine[2] when his neighbor asked Deng to accompany him on a trip. Deng was given as a "gift" to the neighbor's family. Having escaped slavery and emigrated to the United States, he now travels the country addressing audiences which range from the United Nations to middle school students. His speeches focus on education and the anti-slavery movement. Deng works as a lifeguard at Coney Island.[1]

Deng says in his account of his capture and subsequent abduction: "... I was a slave. ... When I was nine years old, my village was raided by Arab troops in the pay of Khartoum. As we ran into the bush to escape I watched as childhood friends were shot dead and the old and the weak who were unable to run were burned alive in their huts. I was abducted and given to an Arab family as a "gift"."[2]

During his time as a slave, Deng was put through inhumane acts. He remembers being punished for not responding loudly enough, beaten by groups of other children, and having nothing but "patience... and my faith" as friends. He was forced to say yes to everything, including torture, and remembers times when "the only thing I could do was ask for mercy... and mercy was not always there."

In the early 2000s, Deng became known and recognized for his outspoken criticisms of the then Omar al-Bashir government in Khartoum and his publicized protests in New York and Washington, DC against the civil war in southern Sudan particularly kidnappings and raids of men, women and children by militia groups allied to the Khartoum government. While also denouncing human rights violations against the war victims. His anti war protests shifted to Anti slavery campaigns as he spent the next decade sharing his own story of being a child slave in the 1960s. He was joined by fellow activist, abolitionist and author Francis Bok who toured the United States and Europe sharing their stories of slavery and calling for an end to war in Sudan on college campuses, in interviews and most famously during the Sudan Freedom Walk. Deng became a prominent speaker with the American Anti Slavery Group and has testified at the Geneva Summit for Human Rights and Democracy in 2010. He continued his advocacy when the war in Darfur began in 2003, linking the conflict with the earlier South Sudanese conflict and drawing parallels between them despite their different origins and motives. After the signing of the 2005 CPA agreements between the SPLA and Khartoum government, Deng became a advocate for South Sudanese independence seeing it as a final outcome to the decades long South Sudanese struggle for peace, human rights and self determination. He undertook another Sudan Freedom Walk joined by Abdel Gabar Adam, from New York to DC in 2010 calling on the public to support the 2011 South Sudanese independence referendum.[3] Deng remains outspoken on South Sudanese human rights.

The Sudan Freedom Walk can refer to one of several such events organized by Simon Deng used to raise awareness of human rights issues in Sudan.

• Interview with Simon Deng – transcript
• Interview with Simon Deng – video, part 1
• Interview with Simon Deng – video, part 2
• Interview with Simon Deng – video, part 3