Slavery in Mali: A Major Obstacle for Centuries (Source: Frontpagemeg.com, Picture of handcuffs, Retrieval date: February 5, 2013) Hee Won Choi February 5th, 2013 Canadian Academy Humanities Map of Mali th
(Google maps, picture of Map of Mail, Retrieval date February 8 , 2013) For centuries, slavery has been a major obstacle for massive numbers of people around Northern Africa. In particular, this has been the case, the focus in the country of Mali. This obstacle is firmly connected to the relationship between humans and the social stratification of people within Malian society. According to Wikipedia.org, the citizens in society who cannot contribute much to the economy of the region, tends to be more connected to slavery, and some being slaves themselves (2013).
CIA Fact Book stated that, “36.1% of the Malian population live under the poverty line. 86.7% of Malians suffering from poverty are stated as slaves. (2009).” This quote by CIA Fact Book is one indicator that suggests how slavery is a major obstacle for large percentage of the Malian population. This is a problem which leaves people no choice but to subject them to slavery in order to make a living for themselves and their family. 3Timeline of Key Events: Mali
Late 15th Century, Fall of the Mali Empire, Huge Increase of Malian Slaves 1890, French Coliniza`on of Mali, 1905, Declara`on of Independence 1948 , UN Ar`cle 4, Declara`on of Human Rights Officially Ban Slavery Globbaly 1950, Slavery banned by law but never enforced Mali is a country located in Northern West Africa with the area of 1,240,000 kilometer squared with a population of approximately 14,533,511 people according to CIA Fact Book (2009) Among the 14,533,511 approximately 200,000 people are enslaved and 600,000 citizens under some condition of control, even though they live separately from their masters. Mali has suffered very long from slavery because of the countries’ historical, political and economics difficulties in the past to the present days. Although slavery is officially banned according to Mali’s fundamental principles there are still no laws to prohibit the practice. There are three major categories in part of slavery; one is when one’s level stated from birth, when debts have to be paid off, and the other is when one has no options but to select slavery as the best option. Another rising obstacles are reclamation of freed slaves. When one is born with a certain level in society, the title is bequeathed from their parent’s title, which, perhaps, could have been continued for generations. This case can be judged closer to a force of slavery. Most title of current slaves have been passed down from slaves bought in the Arab trade during the fall of the Malian empire and when Mali was under the power of France. According to Anti-­‐slavery.com (2008), Iddar a slave in Mali shared that the causation of his status was inherited from his grandmother when she was bought as a slave. For generations their family has been physically abused and working without being paid for their work. His son Ahmed was enslaved from when he was the age of four, doing small jobs like making fires and so on. Eventually, they managed to escape and abolished from slavery with the help of Temdt. This story above justifies that once a member of a family is entitled a slave, it is extremely difficult to abolish this status. As Ahmed, they got him to work from a very young age to get use to his job and educate him from youth that he is a slave. This is the most common causation of slavery. Debt bondages can also be a causation of many enslaved populations. For the people who live under the poverty line, it won’t be easy to pay off a debt The Globe and Mail (2012), informed that a few kidnapping crisis were linked to debt related issues. When the debt is not paid off, one often subjects themselves or their children, and sometimes this can also be a forced deal. Dr.Smith (2003) found that, when one is enslaved for a debt, very often the slave is kept until death and even enslaves other generations of the family and never considers that the debt is paid off. Mali is a developing country with large amounts of the population suffering from poverty. When one lacks resources and money, they have to contribute in society to earn a living for themselves and their family in order to survive. Andrew (2003) shared that Faraji, now a slave for more than 30 years had to subject himself to slavery in order to sick mother and brother. The environment he was working in was very harsh and was very mistreated abused physically. Farji’s father was killed because the debt was not paid in time and their family was threatened to death. Farji had no choice but to be enslaved by the master for he promised him to send 50 cents per day. He has no choice but to work in this factory to make a living for his family. (Source: www.veganpeace.com , Picture of boy making bricks, Retrieval date: February 10th, 2013) Some slaves are freed with the help of organizations or in very specified and rare cases, when the period of the deal is completed. Most masters want their ex-­‐
slaves back, and recently, according to The CBC (2012) there have been cases of illegal reclamation of children by changing their past paper work. The masters never enjoy freeing their slaves because this equals to a decrease of his or hers workers, which can also relate to a lack of labor. Most of the masters never let their slaves out but, when they do they often change past complete paper work or even force them back to work. In fact, Hicks (2008) reported about a case where thousands of Nigerian women were forced to work as slaves in few Mali slave camps. According to the Malian police, these girls were promised a job in England but, the master had signed a contract with another Malian slave keeper to enslave them. Slavery is not only for these reasons, one minor causation of slavery is by companies in need of more workers, but also in some situations, the company is not aware of the use of child labor in their company. Frontpagemeg.com stated that, very well known companies also uses slaves. For example, it has been reported that Volkswagen, the German car company was also in use of 15,000 slaves in Sub Saharan areas of Africa. Because slavery has been continued for such a long period of time, it is out of control and hard to handle because of the massive numbers of slaves to deal with. A short-­‐term solution Dr.Smith mentioned (2003), “A short term solution for companies in use of slaves are simply to not buy their products. When they face a high decrease, they would not be in the financial condition to pay all their laborers. But, this is a less effective solution because just because a few citizens of this world don't buy their product doesn’t mean that they would face a huge decrease on their income. Along with this fact, not a lot of people are aware of this fact and will take time and money to raise awareness” (pg.208). As he mentioned, this is worth a try but it is very doubtful for a noticeable decrease of slaves around the world. A long-­‐term solution that has already been started in certain areas in the Africa, are for anti slavery organizations to get involved. The most well-­‐known and effective organizations are Anti slavery, Temdt (A part of Anti slavery), and the UN. These organizations help citizens under poverty to pay of their debts and resources, prevent illegal reclamation of slaves by providing lawyers to pursue the masters to court. UN is very well known for declaring human and child rights and always holds campaigns to support economically and other events as well. As informed before, Idda and his family received help form Temdt. Temdt provided his family with money for survival and education for their children, providing him with a national identification card for a chance to contribute in society even though it can be hard due to past slave status, and a lawyer to defend them from the master. One can imagine how this has changed Idda and his family’s life. Temmdt states through BBC that they are planning to free larger numbers of slaves until slavery can be abolished for all human beings in this world. For me personally to make a powerful impact is very unlikely. But, I can lend minor help to populations suffering from slavery. Even though it is not as essential, I can reduce consuming products from companies in use of slaves, raise awareness of what is happening currently and how we can make a difference in the world momentarily if we all contribute abolishing slavery. Overall, slavery is a serious obstacle for one to consider. From this obstacle, immense populations of the Malian society and other countries have suffered from the hard work in cruel situations. They could have been possibly treated as more of property than humans and even physically abused from a young age continued down for generations. Many governmental and non-­‐governmental organizations are involved to make for an impact for their lives. This summarized, slavery is an abuse of human race, and a disrespect of one’s rights,. All should be given the opportunity to actively contribute in society. For all humans hold equal rights, slavery should be abolished. Bibliography Anti-­‐Slavery. (2008). Descent Based Slavery in Mali. Retrieved from Anti-­‐Slavery: http://www.antislavery.org/Descent_Based_Slavery_Mali/ BBC. (2010). Thousands of Nigerian women 'found in Mali slave camps'. Fortin, J. (2013). Mali’s Other Crisis: Slavery Still Plagues Mali, And Insurgency Could Make It Worse. Jacey Fortin. Hicks, C. (2008). Uncovering Mali's hidden slavery . MacInnes-­‐Rae, R. (2012). CBC News. Rotberg, H. (2013, 1 13). Frontpage.meg. Retrieved from http://frontpagemag.com/2013/howard-­‐rotberg/slave-­‐labor-­‐from-­‐auschwitz-­‐
to-­‐mali/ Smith, A., Jesnson, S., Baddah , M., & Lee, C. D. (2003). Mali: Overcoming Slavery. In A. Smith, Africa: The Obstacles They Overcome (pp. 88-­‐101). The Globe and Mail. (2012). Mali chaos gives rise to slavery, persecution. Wikipedia. (2013, 1 24). Wikipedia. Retrieved 1 23, 2013, from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Mali World Facts. (2011, 8). Worst Forms of CHild Labor Data.