When radical Islamists in northern Mali began
chopping off the hands of accused thieves and stoning unwed couples to death,
the world was shocked by the brutality. But few noticed exactly who the victims
were.
The first to be persecuted were Mali’s most vulnerable
people: the descendants of slaves. As northern Mali falls under the control of
Islamist and separatist rebels, traditional forms of discrimination and slavery
are making a disturbing return, leaving thousands of people in the renewed
domination of former slave masters.
An estimated 800,000 people in Mali are descended
from slaves. Most are darker-skinned people who were traditionally enslaved by
Berber-descended Tuareg nomads. Similar forms of slavery are also practised in
Niger and Mauritania.
Despite an official ban on the practice, about
200,000 Malians are still the “property” of traditional masters, according to
human rights activists. Most are forced to work without compensation as
herdsmen, shepherds, or household servants. (They are often told by their
masters that they will be paid when they “reach heaven.”) And in the aftermath
of the northern rebellion this year, the number of slaves is rising again.
Many are enslaved by former masters who have
exploited the growing chaos in Mali’s north to reassert their traditional
practices. Others have been targeted by Islamist radicals who seek to impose
their harsh interpretation of sharia law.
