The continent of Africa is one of the regions most rife with contemporary slavery.[1]Slavery in Africa has a long history, within Africa since before historical records, but intensifying with the trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean slave trade[2][3] and again with the trans-Atlantic slave trade;[4] the demand for slaves created an entire series of kingdoms which existed in a state of perpetual warfare in order to generate the prisoners of war necessary for the lucrative export of slaves.[5] These patterns persisted into the colonial period during the late 19th and early 20th century.[6] Although the colonial authorities attempted to suppress slavery around 1900, their attempts were largely ineffective. Even after decolonization, slavery continues in many parts of Africa despite being officially illegal.[7]
Modern day slavery in Africa according to the Anti-Slavery Society includes exploitation of subjugate populations even when their condition is not technically called "slavery":[13][14][15]
Although this exploitation is often not called slavery, the conditions are the same. People are sold like objects, forced to work for little or no pay and are at the mercy of their "employers".
— Antislavery Society, What is Modern Slavery?
Forced labor in Sub-Saharan Africa[16] is estimated at 660,000.[17] This includes people involved in the illegal diamond mines of Sierra Leone and Liberia, which is also a direct result of the civil wars in these regions.[18] In 2017, the International Labour Office estimated that 7 in every 1,000 people in Africa are victims of slavery.[19]
^Kusi, David K. (2000). Africa, One Continent and Many Religions: Towards Interreligious Dialogue in Africa (Thesis). Theological Research Exchange Network (TREN). doi:10.2986/tren.033-0550.
^Zink, Robert James. (1969). "Uhuru wa Watumwa" as a documentary of the Arab slave trade in East Africa. OCLC792751768.
^Green, Toby (2011), "Rethinking the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade from a Cultural Perspective", The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300–1589, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 1–28, doi:10.1017/cbo9781139016407.003, ISBN978-1-139-01640-7
^"The Origins of Slaves Leaving West Central Africa", The Atlantic Slave Trade from West Central Africa, 1780–1867, Cambridge University Press, pp. 73–99, 26 June 2017, doi:10.1017/9781316771501.005, ISBN978-1-316-77150-1
^Allen, Richard B. (29 March 2017), "Asian Indentured Labor in the 19th and Early 20th Century Colonial Plantation World", Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History, Oxford University Press, doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780190277727.013.33, ISBN978-0-19-027772-7
^"Which Way Africa-Towards Africa-Exit from Colonial Empire?", Africa in the Colonial Ages of Empire, Langaa RPCIG, pp. 443–495, 17 December 2017, doi:10.2307/j.ctvh9vtjn.13, ISBN978-9956-764-22-8
^"The mobilization of local ideas about racial difference has been important in generating, and intensifying, civil wars that have occurred since the end of colonial rule in all of the countries that straddle the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. ... contemporary conflicts often hearken back to an older history in which blackness could be equated with slavery and non-blackness with predatory and uncivilized banditry." (cover text), Hall, Bruce S., A History of Race in Muslim West Africa, 1600–1960. Cambridge University Press, 2011.
^"Chad-Mali-Mauritania-Niger-Senegal-Upper Volta: Convention Establishing a Permanent Inter-State Drought Control Committee for the Sahel". International Legal Materials. 13 (3): 537–539. 1974. doi:10.1017/s002078290004568x. S2CID249000440.
^"news-from-human-rights-watch-vol-l5-no8a-borderline-slavery-child-trafficking-in-togo-april-2003-84-pp". Human Rights Documents Online. doi:10.1163/2210-7975_hrd-2156-0326.