FRANCAISAnti-Slavery International - History
2000-2009
-18-28 October 2000, Sudan: after it commissioned a first report in August 1997, ASI sends to Southern Darfur a delegation to conduct an investigation in co-operation with a governmental organism, the CEAWC (Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children). In the North, the Islamic junta in power in Khartoum, at war against the South, refuses to talk about slavery and only admits to disappearances and kidnappings by the Arab militias close to the army. In the South, Fundamentalist Christian organisations claim that the Muslims want to commit a “genocide”. ASI’s realistic position is between the two. The Society criticises both the government, which failed to protect the victims, and CSI (Christian Solidarity International) or CSW (Christian Solidarity Worldwide), which buy up “slaves”, be it at the cost of making the masters richer and encouraging all sorts of fraud. In a report sent to the UN in June 1999, ASI also contests the assertion of 20,000 slaves and finds evidence for only several hundreds of captives scattered around separate households.
-February 2002, Nepal: following pressure from ASI and its local partner, the organisation BASE (Backward Society Education), the government in Kathmandu votes a law making kamaiya bonded labour illegal.
-From 2005, Niger: Ilguilas Weila, the head of prominent anti-slavery organisation Timidria, and five colleagues are put in prison on 5 May 2005. Judicial sources say the six are accused of "propagating false information on slavery and attempting to raise funds illegally" by seeking 3.5 millions of Euros from ASI for the rehabilitation of thousands of slaves. In March this year, they had organised a release ceremony for some 7,000 slaves in the village of Inates, almost 300 km northwest of the capital. But the slaves failed to show up. ASI said a government delegation had visited the slave chief and intimidated him into backing out of the release. In a statement, Mary Cunneen, the director of the organisation, “condemns the Niger Government's treatment of Ilguilas Weila and demands his immediate and unconditional release”. ASI then defends Hadijatou Mani, the daughter of a slave, sold when she was twelve years old. Thanks to Anti-Slavery, the Niger Government's is eventually condemned for the first time in October 2008 by the regional court of ECOWAS (Economic Community Of West African States) and has to compensate the young victim because of its failure to protect her.
