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Article Excerpt
Abstract: Despite the January 2005 Comprehensive Peace Agreement, reconstruction of southern Sudan remains a daunting task, which limited resources and unlimited suspicions may derail or delay. Among myriad issues facing agencies and their client communities are the problems of assisting children traumatized by the brutal legacies of Sudan's first half century of independence. Given the length of Sudan's conflicts, few have experienced a "normal" childhood. Furthermore, the psychological and social aspects of rehabilitation have only been examined recently. This article tabulates the successes and failures of governmental and non-governmental programs rehabilitating former slaves, many of whom were or are children, and child soldiers, many of whom are now adults. It compares activities in Sudan to programs in other parts of Africa (Angola, Ethiopia, Ghana, Liberia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone and Uganda) and beyond (Afghanistan, India, Sri Lanka and the United Arab Emirates). Applying these comparisons in the absence of long-term assessments, the author endeavors to determine pitfalls to be avoided and best practices to be followed.
HISTORICAL CONTEXT
Most ancient forms of forced servitude sought to absorb conquered peoples and avoid their reintegration into previous cultures. But the rise of profit-driven mass slavery in Imperial Rome, Ottoman Turkey, and later the Americas, raised new issues, as slaveholders had little desire to integrate chattels into their societies. The Trans-Atlantic slave trade created an easily distinguishable class to clarify socio-economic divisions. The removal of Africans from their homelands and the disruption of their cultural patterns without absorption into their masters' societies generated complex problems reflected in contemporary forms of slavery elsewhere. As defined in international conventions, all forms of slavery entail loss of control over one's labor and movement for non-criminal reasons to another without pay, usually involving ownership for permanent or unclear terms of service. [1]
In the two centuries following the abolition of slavery in the British Empire, legal emancipation and economic assistance, particularly the provision of land, jobs and other resources to allow the development of new livelihoods, were assumed to be all that was necessary for ex-slaves to adjust to their new status. These assumptions guided the workings of America's post-Civil War Freedmen's Bureau and the establishment of freed slave communities in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Fernando Po. However, problems were immediately evident. The American formula of "forty acres and a mule" proved unrealistic. Such approaches are still evident in Mauritania's El Hor movement which has campaigned for the enforcement of anti-slavery laws, land reform, and the formation of agricultural cooperatives since the 1970s. [2]
Over the past two hundred years, great attention has been placed on children's issues. Exactly what the numbers and roles of children were in early slavery and slave trading are sketchy. As anti-slavery crusades and anti-child labor campaigns emerged in the early 19th century, western societies also began to make distinctions between childhood and adulthood to an extent unknown in any other time or place. Children came to be perceived as requiring protection from exploitative labor practices, far beyond slavery. However, by the 21st century various forms of profit-driven bondage enslaved an estimated 27 million people worldwide, ranging from West African chocolate slaves to Thai sex slaves to Central Asian carpet slaves. [3] All of these practices involve the exploitation of children.
Following World War II, the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration's reintegration of Nazi Germany's 7 million slave laborers exposed the limits of focusing only on the legal and economic status of former slaves. The American civil rights movement emphasized slavery's profound long-term effects. British sociologist Kevin Bales would later argue the mental bonds of slavery are at least as strong as physical force. [4] Hence in the last sixty years, a variety of initiatives developed to address the unanswered psychological, social and cultural needs and complex dilemmas facing ex-slaves. These solutions differ from culture to culture and vary according to the proportion of a slave's life under servitude. Common to these programs is the emphasis on meeting ex-slaves' immediate needs for medical care, improved nutrition, and time to rest and define what their changed status means. For those who have known only slavery, this can take a long time. Former slaves require education and reorientation of their skills. Their one advantage is that they know how to work and given opportunities to work for themselves, often rapidly achieve a measure of economic stability.
THE SUDANESE SITUATION
Sudan has one of the longest known histories of human bondage. [5] Ancient Kush, medieval Nubia, and numerous periods of foreign rule bear witness to widespread slavery and slave trading. Unlike most forms of servitude outside of the Middle East, early Sudanese slaving included many destined for military service. [6] The ages of such slaves are seldom known. Undoubtedly many were ancient equivalents of child soldiers. Mass profit-driven slavery dates from Sudan's 1820 invasion by the Ottoman Turks who imposed heavy taxes, paid in slaves. Conquest by the British in 1898 ended this institutionalized slavery, but the replacement of forced labor with wage labor proved difficult. [7] Slavery or equivalent variations of bonded labor continued in isolated areas. When independence came in 1956, the memory of slavery was still recent and loomed large in the consciousness of both those who had benefited and those who had been victimized. Increasingly polarized ethnic and religious differences between north and south resulted. Centered on Khartoum, northern political dominance of Sudan was characterized by oppression and neglect. [8] Many northerners still refer to southerners as abeed (slaves).
Not surprisingly, a half-century of civil war promoted an upsurge in slavery as a tool of oppression. By the mid-1990s, more than two million people were displaced from the south and Nuba Mountains to the north. While most fled the conflict of their own accord, some were clearly abducted as slaves. Raids by government-backed muraheleen militias captured Nuba from South Kordofan and Dinka from the Bahr El Ghazal and Upper Nile. Held in bondage and often physically and sexually abused, abductees were forced to herd cattle, fetch water, work fields, dig wells or do housework. Some had their hamstring muscles cut to prevent their escape.
In the Sudanese context, distinctions between slaves, child soldiers and street children are fluid rather than mutually exclusive. [9] The government, SPLA and SSIA forcibly or deceptively recruited underage boys into their ranks. Many street children and others who were displaced found themselves exploited. Some demobilized child soldiers became street children as a result of poverty. Many became adults by the time of their demobilization. All totaled, tens of thousands were coerced into servitude and denied basic rights. Even more found soldiering, begging, prostitution and menial labor the only means to survive the oppressive poverty characterizing most of Sudan.
While Sudanese culture may conceptualize childhood differently than Western societies, the legal obligations of governments in Khartoum are clear. Sudan acceded to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights on 18 March 1986, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights on 18 March 1986, and ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on 3 August 1990. Though Sudan's 1991 Criminal Code does not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons, its constitution prohibits slavery and forced labor. Sudan has ratified the Slavery Convention and other international instruments banning slavery. However, the Khartoum regime has not enforced its own laws against kidnapping, assault and forced labor. Dismissing criticism and claiming it has little control over hostage-taking by rival groups, Sudanese leaders have denied the findings of numerous reports documenting slavery, but acknowledged that abductions occurred. [10]
One important report was that of the International Eminent Persons Group, which emerged from the mediation efforts of former U.S. Senator and Special Envoy for Sudan John Danforth. Led by American Penn Kemble of Freedom House, this eight-person team included U.S. Ambassador George Moose and representatives from France, Italy, Norway and Britain, supported by Canadian, British and American technical experts. One of four confidence-building measures agreed by both sides was cooperation in studying the issues of "slavery, abductions and forced servitude." [11] The group interviewed scores of individuals in northern and southern Sudan and Kenya. Identifying slavery as "one of a series of continuing human rights abuses in Sudan," its 55-page report concluded that an upsurge in abductions and related human rights abuses since 1983 met the international definition of slavery. The report argued that the situation was not a continuation of traditional practices beyond government control, as explained by Sudanese officials, but a direct consequence of militia activities encouraged by successive governments in Khartoum. Most of the report's findings were aimed at Khartoum, but the group also expressed concern over abductions and other human rights abuses committed by SPLA forces, noting the absence of democratic institutions and practices in all parts of the country.
Another damning investigation was carried out by Jok Madut Jok and John Ryle of the Rift Valley Institute and resulted in the Sudan Abductee Database. [12] Following an eighteen-month field investigation in seven SPLA-controlled counties of Northern Bahr-el-Ghazal and contiguous parts of Abyei district, their survey produced an impressive record with the full names and identifying details of 12,000 people violently abducted in over 2,000 raids on Dinka, Luo and Fertit communities by militias operating out of government-controlled areas between 1983 and 2002. More than 5,000 people were reportedly killed in these raids. Over half of the recorded abductees were under 18. Most were males. Over 11,000 remain unaccounted for. The worst case was found in Aweil West County where 101 adults and children were abducted from the village of Ajok in a single week in 1999. However, one weakness of both the Sudan Abductee Database and the report of the International Eminent Persons Group are their geographical limitations. The total number impacted by slavery is much higher than the figures found in these reports, which though well-researched, detailed and important, deal only with the northwestern quarter of SPLM-controlled areas.
In June 2003, the UN Human Rights Commission's Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery issued a report, noting that "[s]lavery, otherwise referred to as abductions and forced labor, remains a reality in Sudan." [13] The UN Special Rapporteur on Sudan reported to the commission that "in spite of some new commitments, so far human rights abuses have not decreased neither in the north nor in southern Sudan and the overall human rights situation has not improved significantly." He added that raids and abductions were continuing and that the government had not clearly condemned abductions and forced labor. To the surprise and disappointment of many, the commission voted not to extend his mandate in 2004.
Numerous organizations have been involved in slave redemption in Sudan, which received a surge of press coverage at the very beginning of the 21st century. Accounts of ex-slaves' lives became best-selling books. [14] However, not as much attention was given to healing the wounds of bondage. Several church groups and Canadian Aid for Southern Sudan offer educational and vocational training for former slaves. Ongoing instability, insufficient resources and the scale of Sudanese slavery have made the effects of many programs unclear.
Nowhere is the complexity of slave reintegration more evident than in the workings of the Sudanese government's Commission for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC), which seeks to identify, retrieve and reintegrate abducted persons and train those involved in this process. [15] CEAWC was founded by the Sudanese government in May 1999 following widespread international criticism. [16] Its operations have been dogged by lack of agreed standardized procedures, coordination, planning and trained personnel. Its tracing, documentation and reunification activities have been insufficient due to limited access to affected areas and lack of resources, such as transport, food, water, medical care, tools for cultivation, shelter, and structures for exchanging information and messages. CEAWC's policy has been to return everyone identified as abducted to their places of origin without assessing individual circumstances. This has led to serious problems.
Based on interviews and casework, UNICEF and other agencies believe that a significant number of returned abductees were not voluntary. [17] Most slaves are of Dinka origin, abducted into the North's Arabic-speaking, Muslim culture. Some required counseling as a result of brutal treatment, while others were reluctant to leave their present situations for uncertain futures. The offspring of women subjected to forced marriages or concubinage generated disputes over parental rights. Difficulties resulted as a consequence of female genital mutilation, practiced in northern Sudan, but not among the Dinka. Some abductees were encouraged to return by misinformation about destinations and available services. Separated from their families and homes for years, many have little or no recollection of their relatives, culture, language or place of origin. Highly vulnerable, unaccompanied children, some of whom made attachments to northern families who provided for their needs, were moved great distances. The assumption that children whose families cannot be traced will be cared for by their "community" was not adequately researched. Not surprisingly, some returnees protested with hunger strikes or by running away.
The International Eminent Persons Group acknowledged CEAWC's establishment, but raised questions about the government's commitment, as measured by its administrative and financial support and cooperation with international agencies. It also criticized the Sudanese government for not pursuing offenders. CEAWC's chairperson has the power to prosecute any person involved in the abduction of women and children, but had not. In fact, no prosecutions had been brought in the previous 16 years. [18] The UN Special Rapporteur's report also criticized CEAWC's slow progress. Noting that some sources described CEAWC as "massively dysfunctional," the rapporteur pointed out that "no public statements were made in support of CEAWC by the highest political levels" and that its claim that it could identify and reunite 11,500 cases in one year was...
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