Slavery exists today and more than 27 million people are enslaved worldwide, according to Sarah Rial, assistant director of the American Anti-Slavery Group.
She and escaped slave Abuk Bak, both formerly of southern Sudan, discussed the enslaving of women and children in that nation last night at an event hosted by Boston University’s Amnesty International at the School of Education.
“When I was a little girl, I was playing in the house when the armed militia came into the house,” Bak said via the interpretation of Rial. “They started shooting. Even my grandfather was shot in front of my eyes.”
The militia took Bak and her aunt to a slave market, where a man purchased her. She tended his sheep and cattle for 10 years under poor conditions.
“He used to not give me any food,” she said. “I used to sleep in a small room with the cattle.”
Eventually, her master attempted to rape her, threatening her with a knife.
“When I was about 20 years old, my master tried to grab me to rape me,” Bak said. “I fought back and ran from the home bleeding.”
Hiding among a truckload of cattle, she reached Khartoum. After Bak and a fellow Dinka man failed to locate her family, he arranged her marriage with his brother in Cairo.
Bak applied for refugee status and once accepted, she came to the United States in January of 2000 and currently lives in Boston.
“When I got here, I felt very happy in this land,” Bak said. “I am very far from the atrocities of Sudan. … I know I’m free, but there are many people who have been abducted and are still enslaved.”
Rial and her organization work to aid those enslaved by the Sudanese government as part of jihad, or holy war, that pits the predominantly Arab and Muslim population of the north against the blacks in the south.
“Slavery in Sudan is not economic,” Rial said. “It is a terrorist weapon used by the government in the south.”
Female slaves serve as domestic workers, laborers and concubines, she said. They are frequently forced to accept Islam, genitally mutilated, raped and mentally brutalized.
“Women’s rights are humans’ rights,” Rial said. “We should all support these rights.”
Rial urged the audience of about a dozen to support her group’s efforts against slavery by signing a petition demanding the freedom of 103 named slaves. The American Anti-Slavery Group will also start their Freedom March 2001 on Boston Common April 28.
This is an account occasionally used by the Daily Free Press editors to post archived posts from previous iterations of the site or otherwise for special circumstance publications. See authorship info on the byline at the top of the page.
