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Slavery in Africa

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Submitted By minhaj23
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April 13, 2012
Modern-day slaves can be found labouring as servants or concubines in Sudan, as child "carpet slaves" in India, or as cane-cutters in Haiti and southern Pakistan, to name instances. According to Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest human rights organization, there are currently over 20 million people currently enslaved and working as slaves.
The slave trade in Africa was officially banned in the early 1880s, but forced labour continues to be practiced in West and Central Africa today. UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year. Many of these children are from Benin and Togo, and are sold into the domestic, agricultural, and sex industries of wealthier, neighbouring countries such as Nigeria and Gabon.
Kidnapped from their villages when they are as young as five years old, between 200,000 and 300,000 children are held captive in locked rooms and forced to weave on looms for food. Many of the bonded labourers are shackled in leg-irons in Pakistan.
In the Dominican Republic, the collection of slaves for the busy harvest season is more random. The Dominican army, with the support of the State Sugar Council (known as the CEA), drags Haitians off public buses, arrests them in their homes or at their jobs, and delivers them to the cane fields.
However in the in the ancient world slavery was common. The great civilizations of the Middle East, the Americas, Europe, and West Indies all kept slaves. Slavery was also common in ancient India and China. The main sources of slaves were prisoners of war. A difference from modern slavery and ancient slavery was that the slaves were heredity meaning a slave's children were also slaves. Some people sold themselves or their children into slavery to avoid starvation.
Slavery was more open and common back in the 18th century. Slaves were crammed into ships where

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