A remarkable investigation by a Yemeni newspaper, al-Masdar, has discovered that slavery persists in Yemen, long after if was officially abolished. Five hundred or more people are said to be living in servitude in parts of Hajja and Hodeida provinces. Sheikhs and members of the local authorities are said to be among the slave owners.

Slavery is outlawed in Yemen and anyone involved in the trade can be jailed for up to 10 years, but the revelations haveprompted calls for action to eradicate it.

A report in The Media Line says: 

Rights advocates say there are two common forms of slavery in Yemen: ‘inheritance’ and migration. With inheritance, the descendants of the slave’s owner upon death inherit a slave and their family. In the case of migration, poor migrants arriving in Yemen from Africa find themselves indebted to businessmen who helped pay their passage. 

"In Yemen there is a social class of people called 'the servants', who have usually come from Somalia or other African countries, who live in a stage of bondage and are very widely disregarded in society," Christoph Wilcke, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division told The Media Line. "It has to do with dark skin, being foreign and living in poverty or in debt."

Posted by Brian Whitaker, 6 July 2010.