Escaping Enslavement

He had no idea it would be the last time he would see his family.

That morning, Francis Bok, a member of the Dinka ethnic group, walked from his home in southwestern Sudan to the regional market to sell beans and eggs for his mother.

Suddenly, hordes of Arab Islamic militiamen stormed the marketplace, carrying guns and swords. Surrounding the frightened masses, the soldiers shot and stabbed many of the adults and adolescent boys. Others were beheaded.

Bok will never forget the 12-year-old girl who was shot because she would not stop crying after seeing her parents killed. When her younger sister cried out, soldiers cut off her foot.

He and the other children were tied up, stuffed in saddlebags and strapped on donkeys, as the soldiers snatched them from their homeland to be sold into a life of bondage.

For the next 10 years, he tended fields and slept with farm animals at the home of a militiaman’s brother until the United Nations granted him asylum in 1996.

Bok became one of the thousands of victims in one of the world’s longest running civil wars.

That was May 15, 1986. Bok was only 7- years old.

Now, at age 21, Bok shares his story as a member of the American Anti-Slavery Group, speaking with audiences at churches and community groups around Boston.

“I really want to tell my story because I hate that other children have to experience what happened to me,” he says.

While most assume slavery is a thing of the past, the Anti-Slavery Group reports that more than 100,000 Black women and children remain enslaved in Sudan.

Slavery in Sudan began in the 1800s when Arab slave traders sold Black Sudanese as slaves in Egypt and the Middle East. Since these early days the Arab Muslim ruling class in Sudan has continued to enslave Black Christians in a Muslim holy war to convert non-Muslims to Islam.

While the slave trade went into a relative decline for approximately a century, 1983 marked its resurgence. Arab tribal militiamen, or murahhilin, raided Dinka villages with automatic weapons, enslaving women and children and killing adult males.

Bok’s story resonates the experiences of thousands of voiceless people.

“When I came to my master’s house,” he says slowly, “Giema [the slave owner] called over the whole family. They all had sticks. They all beat me, and they laughed and called me ‘Abid, abid,’ meaning Black slave.”

He often ate garbage disguised as food and received daily beatings from the master and his children.

“I was crying all the night,” says Bok, as his glossy eyes stare straight ahead and his hands wring. “For 10 years, nobody loved me.”

Bok says faith kept him going. Even though his master forced him to publicly convert to Islam, he maintained his Christian beliefs.

“I prayed to God to save my life,” Bok says.

But at the age of 14 Bok decided to take matters into his own hands. He attempted to run away twice and was caught and severely beaten on both occasions.

His master swore he would kill him the next time he tried to escape.

Nevertheless, knowing that slave owners often kill slaves once they reach adolescence, Bok attempted to escape three years later and succeeded.

“I didn’t know what was going to happen to me,” Bok says.

In desperation, Bok ran to a nearby town to seek help from the police. The officers, who enforced the very system he was trying to escape, put him to work as their slave for the next two months.

With his heart set on freedom, Bok fled again — this time to a local market where an Arab merchant offered his home as an asylum. While suspicious of the merchant’s intentions, Bok reluctantly climbed into the back of his truck.

“I thought, ‘I will kill myself if he enslaves me,’” Bok says.

However this was not the case. Bok stayed with the merchant and his wife for a few months, until they suggested that Bok go to the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

In Khartoum, Bok made connections that returned him to his hometown in May of 1997. But after some villagers reported Bok a fugitive, he was sent to jail where he stayed until December of 1997.

After his release, Bok made his way to Cairo with the help of an Egyptian consulate worker. There, Bok spoke to United Nations officials who documented his story and granted him refugee status.

Finally in April of 1999, UN officials moved Bok to Fargo, North Dakota, where he lived with parishioners of a Catholic church.

Since then Bok’s story has spread across the states.

Last May, the Anti-Slavery Group asked him to move to Boston and join them in combating Sudanese slavery.

That same month, Bok traveled to the Washington, D.C., with the Anti-Slavery Group to tell his story publicly for the first time at the Sudan Campaign where protesters challenged the lack of U.S. involvement in Sudan.

Last July, Bok testified at Senate hearings about the human rights offenses in his country. When the Anti-Slavery Group returned in September, Bok spoke to former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. As a result, Dr. Susan Rice, former assistant Secretary of State for Africa, met with former female slaves in Sudan.

Still, after this whirlwind of events, Bok’s face brightens when he speaks about his life in America.

He lives in Lynn and takes classes at the Boston Evening Academy and eventually hopes to earn his high school equivalency diploma and to attend college after graduation.

“I want to make myself equal to others,” Bok says. “Education is the price of freedom.”

Yet, he sometimes feels guilty when he thinks about those he left behind.

“I think it is important to learn and make a change,” Bok says. “We need you to help make a difference.”