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The Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery was a committee of the United Nations (UN), created in 1950. [1] It investigated the occurrence of slavery on a global level. Its final report resulted in the introduction of the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery of 1956.
The global investigation of the occurrence of slavery and slave trade performed by the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery (ACE) between 1934 and 1939, was interrupted by the outbreak of the World War II, but it lay the foundation for the work against slavery performed by the UN after the war. [2]
When the League of Nations was succeeded by the United Nations (UN) after the end of the World War II, Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge of the Anti-Slavery International conducted a three years long campaign for the UN to continue the investigation of global slavery conducted by the ACE of the League. [3]
In 1948, the United Nations declared slavery to be a crime against humanity in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, after which the Anti-Slavery Society pointed out that there were about one million slaves in the Arabian Peninsula, which was a crime against the 1926 Slavery Convention, and demanded that the UN form a committee to handle the issue. [4]
The Anti-Slavery Society was given consultative status in the ECOSOC of the UN in 1949, and campaigned against contemporary slavery such as the mui tsai. [5] After three years, Greenidge's campaign met success in 1949, when the UN formed their ad hoc Committee on Slavery. The committee was formally inaugurated with its first meeting at Lake Success, which lasted between February and March 1950. [6]
The Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery was to "survey the field of slavery and other institutions of customs resembling slavery" for a period of twelve months. [7] It was composed of five experts, among them Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge, Jane Vialle, Professor Pablo Troncoso of Chile and Professor Bruno Lasker of Germany. [8] There were some uncertainty whether slavery should include only actual chattel slavery or also force labor. [9]
The committee was to consider the "nature and extent" of slavery and force labor, and suggest "methods of attacking" them. [10]
The committee issued a questionnaire listing a number of different practices, both practices defined as slavery according to the 1926 Slavery Convention, but also added new practices, and among those listed were chattel slavery, serfdom, peonage, debt-bondage, pawning, exploitation of children by false adoption such as mui tsai, forced marriage, and forced labor; they asked governments as well as NGOs such as the World Federation of Trade Unions and the American Workers Defense League, if they were aware of these practices occurred and which measures had been taken to combat them. [11]
At the time of the Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery, legal chattel slavery still existed only in the Arabian Peninsula: in Oman, in Qatar, in Saudi Arabia, in the Trucial States and in Yemen. Chattel slavery was officially banned in the rest of the world. However, chattel slavery still existed de facto despite the formal law in several parts of Africa.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen, where legal chattel slavery still existed, refused to participate in the survey. [12] The British admitted that slavery were still legal in the Aden Protectorate, but avoided sending in information about slavery in the Trucial States. [13] The British did not send in any information about slavery in Sudan. [14]
There were suggestions to create a new convention to expand the definition of slavery, to include not only chattel slavery, such as in the 1926 Slavery Convention, but also to forbid debt bondage, serfdom, forced marriage, adoption aimed at exploitation; that marriages should be registered that slave trading at sea be defined as piracy; that all signatories send annual reports, and to create a permanent committee. [15]
The Committee filed its final report to the ECOSOC in 1951, and it was published in 1953. The report lay the ground work for the creation of a new anti slavery convention known as the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, which was presented in 1954 and introduced in 1956. [16]
Many governments merely described the formal law and avoided and addressing the actual practice of slavery, and ECOSOC therefore asked for a new report. [17] When the 1953 report did not show any difference from the 1951 report, Greenidge forced the issue and sent a draft of a new convention to the ECOSOC in April 1954, which was formally presented by Hans Engen of Norway as rapporteur at the 19th Sesson of ECOSOC. [18] The suggested convention was not accepted in full; for example, the suggestion to ban mutilations could not be included out of consideration for Muslim countries, were mutilation of hand and foot were a punishment for crime in accordance with Islamic law. [19]
In the 1950s, in connection to the Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, Barnett Janner described Saudi Arabia and Yemen as the only remaining states were slavery was still a legal institution: [20]
The shipping of slaves occurs in only one particular area of the world, in the seas around Arabia. The warships most likely to search such slavers would be British, and I feel sure that there would not be any abuse of the right to search. I am sorry that we gave up the fight for that right. As far as I know, Saudi Arabia and Yemen are the only States in the world where chattel slavery is still a legal institution. Only a year or so ago a French Deputy—the person, I assume, to whom my hon. Friend referred—investigated the situation and found that every year ignorant Africans are lured on by agents to make a pilgrimage to Mecca. They are not told, of course, that they need a Saudi Arabian visa. When they arrive in Saudi Arabia without a visa they are arrested and put into prison for a few days and then handed over to licensed slave dealers. In addition, raids are made in Baluchistan and the Sheikdoms of the Persian Gulf and people are captured and carried off by land and sea, taken to small Saudi Arabian ports and sold in slave markets.
Legal chattel slavery was finally abolished in the Arabian Peninsula in the 1960s: Saudi Arabia and Yemen in 1962, Dubai in 1963 and Oman in 1970.
Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest international human rights organisation, and works exclusively against slavery and related abuses.
Abdullah Yahya al-Sallal was a Yemeni military officer who was the leader of the North Yemeni Revolution of 1962 and served as the first President of the Yemen Arab Republic from 27 September 1962 until his removal on 5 November 1967. It was his government that abolished slavery in Yemen.
The 1926 Slavery Convention or the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery is an international treaty created under the auspices of the League of Nations and first signed on 25 September 1926. It was registered in League of Nations Treaty Series on 9 March 1927, the same day it went into effect. The objective of the convention is to confirm and advance the suppression of slavery and the slave trade and was extended in 1956 with the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, under the auspices of the United Nations.
Gabriel Louis Angoulvant was a colonial administrator in the second French colonial empire.
Sir William George Maxwell was a British colonial administrator in British Malaya and the Straits Settlements.
Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge was the vice president of the Anti-Slavery Society in 1968. He was secretary of the society from 1941–1956 and director from 1957–1958.
The Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the full title of which is the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, is a 1956 United Nations treaty which builds upon the 1926 Slavery Convention, which is still operative and which proposed to secure the abolition of slavery and of the slave trade, and the Forced Labour Convention of 1930, which banned forced or compulsory labour, by banning debt bondage, serfdom, child marriage, servile marriage, and child servitude.
Slavery in international law is governed by a number of treaties, conventions and declarations. Foremost among these is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948) that states in Article 4: “no one should be held in slavery or servitude, slavery in all of its forms should be eliminated.”
Slavery in Yemen was formally abolished in the 1960s. However, it has been reported that enslavement still occurred in the 21st-century.
The history of slavery in the Muslim world began with institutions inherited from pre-Islamic Arabia.
Legal chattel slavery existed in the area which was later to become Oman from antiquity until the 1970s. Oman was united with Zanzibar from the 1690s until 1856, and was a significant center of the Indian Ocean slave trade from Zanzibar in East Africa to the Arabian Peninsula and Iran, a central hub of the regional slave trade, which constituted a large part of its economy.
For most of its history, Qatar practiced slavery until its abolition in 1952. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Chattel slavery was succeeded by the Kafala system. The kafala system has been abolished in Qatar since December 2016. However, concerns still remain about workers' rights and employers retaining considerable power over workers.
Legal Chattel slavery existed in Saudi Arabia until the 1960s.
Jane or Jeanne Vialle was a French journalist, politician and women's rights activist. She was a member of the French Resistance, and one of the first two black female senators in France.
The Red Sea slave trade, sometimes known as the Islamic slave trade, Arab slave trade, or Oriental slave trade, was a slave trade across the Red Sea trafficking Africans from the African continent to slavery in the Arabian Peninsula and the Middle East from antiquity until the mid-20th-century.
Chattel slavery existed in the Trucial States (1892–1971), which later formed the United Arab Emirates. The Trucial States consisted of the Sheikdoms Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah, and Ras Al Khaimah. The region was mainly supplied with enslaved people from the Indian Ocean slave trade, but humans were also trafficked to the area from Hejaz, Oman and Persia. Slaves were used in the famous pearl fish industry and later in the oil industry, as well as sex slaves and domestic servants. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves.
Open chattel slavery existed in Kuwait until the 1940s. Slavery was formally abolished in Kuwait in 1949. In practice, slavery was not actually abolished as such, but the law no longer recognized it after 1949, which meant that every slave who applied for manumission was guaranteered to be freed. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.
Open slavery existed in Bahrain until the 1930s. Slavery was formally abolished in Bahrain in 1937. Slavery ended earlier in Bahrain than in any other Gulf state, with the exception of Iran and Iraq. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region were slaves had previously been imported.
The Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery (ACE) was a permanent committee of the League of Nations, inaugurated in 1933. It was the first permanent slavery committee of the League of Nations, which was founded after a decade of work addressing the issue of slavery by temporary committees within the League.
The Temporary Slavery Commission (TSC) was a committee of the League of Nations, inaugurated in 1924.