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Slavery in Jordan is illegal, however, like many other countries, it suffers from issues relating to human trafficking. Historically, slavery in the territory later to become the modern state of Jordan, was significant during the Ottoman Empire period.
The area was one of the destinations of the Red Sea slave trade of enslaved Africans until the 20th century. Slavery was banned in the Emirate of Transjordan in 1929, but it was still reported to exist in practice in the 1940s. Many members of the Afro-Jordan minority are descendants of former slaves.
Historically, the institution of slavery in the region of the later Jordan was reflected in the institution of slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661) slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258), slavery in the Mamluk Sultanate (1258–1517) and finally slavery in the Ottoman Empire (1517–1918).
Jordan was close to the Red Sea slave trade, which had been trafficking enslaved people from Eastern Africa across the Red Sea to Arabia since antiquity.
The sugar plantations in the Southern Jordan valley cultivated during the Ayybid (1187–1260) and Mamluk (1250–1517) era are known to have used slave labor, but it is unknown which ethnicity the slaves had or how they arrived to Jordan. [1] From 1500 onward, three slave routes for slaves to Jordan-Palestine are known: Somalis victims of the Red Sea slave trade bought with pilgrims on return from the Hajj; Abyssinians bought to Palestine-Jordan from Cyprus and Istanbul; and slaves purchased in the slave markets of Egypt. [1]
In accordance with Islamic tradition, female slaves were used as domestic servants or concubines (sex slaves), and male slaves, in addition to hard labor, were also used as pages, bodyguards and poets to the Bedouin tribal leaders during the 19th- and 20th centuries. [1]
Jordan belonged to the Ottoman Empire in 1517–1921. Slavery was a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy. During the late 19th century, the Ottoman Empire officially conducted efforts to restrain the slave trade in the provinces of the Empire. Among the reforms representing the process of official abolition of slavery in the Ottoman Empire where the Prohbition of the Circassian and Georgian slave trade (1854–1855), the Prohibition of the Black Slave Trade (1857), and the Anglo-Ottoman Convention of 1880, [2] followed by the Kanunname of 1889 and the excluding of slavery from the Constitution of 1908. However, in practice, these efforts were largely nominal and had no actual effect in Jordan. [1]
In 1921, former Ottoman Jordan was transformed into the Emirate of Transjordan (1921–1946), which was a British protectorate. The British Empire, having signed the 1926 Slavery Convention as a member of the League of Nations, was obliged to investigate, report and fight slavery and slave trade in all land under direct or indirect control of the British Empire. Slavery in Transjordan was legally abolished by the British in 1929. [3] [4] The British ban against slavery was incorporated into the constitution, and after 1929, there were officially no slavery in Jordan. [5]
In 1934 however, a report to the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery of the League of Nations noted that slaves were still kept among the Bedouin shaykhs in Jordan and Palestine, and that slavery was maintained under the guise of clientage. [6]
While formally banned on paper, slavery was reported to still exist in practice in Jordan as late as the 1940s. [1]
Many members of the Afro-Jordan minority are descendants of former slaves.
Jordan is a source, destination, and transit country for adults and children subjected to forced labor and, to a lesser extent, sex trafficking. Women from Southeast Asia and East Africa voluntarily migrate to Jordan for employment among the estimated 50,000 foreign domestic workers in the country; some domestic workers are subjected to forced labor. Many of these workers cannot return to their home countries due to pending criminal charges against them or their inability to pay overstay penalties or plane fare home.
Mamluk or Mamaluk were non-Arab, ethnically diverse enslaved mercenaries, slave-soldiers, and freed slaves who were assigned high-ranking military and administrative duties, serving the ruling Arab and Ottoman dynasties in the Muslim world.
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of slaves have differed vastly in different systems of slavery in different times and places.
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was a major institution and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy and traditional society.
The Ottoman–Mamluk War of 1516–1517 was the second major conflict between the Egypt-based Mamluk Sultanate and the Ottoman Empire, which led to the fall of the Mamluk Sultanate and the incorporation of the Levant, Egypt, and the Hejaz as provinces of the Ottoman Empire. The war transformed the Ottoman Empire from a realm at the margins of the Islamic world, mainly located in Anatolia and the Balkans, to a huge empire encompassing much of the traditional lands of Islam, including the cities of Mecca, Cairo, Damascus, and Aleppo. Despite this expansion, the seat of the empire's political power remained in Constantinople.
Afro-Jordanians are Jordanians of Black African heritage. Afro-Jordanians speak Arabic and mostly adhere to Islam. Most Afro-Jordanians are concentrated in the Southwest parts of Jordan.
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.
Afro-Palestinians are Palestinians of black African heritage. At least 1% of the population of the Gaza Strip, around 20,000, is estimated to be black. A minority of Afro-Palestinians, estimated population between 200-450, reside in an African enclave around the Bab al-Majlis, in the Muslim Quarter of Jerusalem. Some of the community dwell in other areas of Jerusalem such as Beit Hanina and A-Tur.
The Balqa, known colloquially as the Balga, is a geographic region in central Jordan generally defined as the highlands east of the Jordan Valley in between the Zarqa River to the north and the Wadi Mujib gorge to the south.
Legal Chattel slavery existed in Saudi Arabia until the 1960s.
The Black Sea slave trade trafficked people across the Black Sea from Europe and the Caucasus to slavery in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. The Black Sea slave trade was a center of the slave trade between Europe and the rest of the world from antiquity until the 19th century. One of the major and most significant slave trades of the Black Sea region was the trade of the Crimean Khanate, known as the Crimean slave trade.
Afro-Saudis, also known as African Saudis and Black Saudis, are Saudi citizens of partial or full black African heritage. They are spread all around the country, but they are mostly found in the major cities of Saudi Arabia. Afro-Saudis speak Arabic and adhere to Islam. While some black Saudis descend from slaves brought through the Arab slave trade, the majority descend from Muslim pilgrims, primarily from West Africa, who settled in the cities of Mecca and Jeddah.
Slavery in Egypt existed up until the early 20th century. It differed from the previous slavery in ancient Egypt, being managed in accordance with Islamic law from the conquest of the Caliphate in the 7th century until the practice stopped in the early 20th-century, having been gradually phased out when the slave trade was banned in the late 19th century. British pressure led to the abolishment of slavery trade successively between 1877 and 1884. Slavery itself was not abolished, but it gradually died out after the abolition of the slave trade, since no new slaves could be legally acquired, and excisting slaves where given the right to apply for freedom. Existing slaves were noted as late as the 1930s.
Slavery existed in the territory of the modern state of Iraq until the 1920s.
Slavery existed in the territory of the modern state of Syria until the 1920s.
Chattel slavery was a major part of society, culture and economy in the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) of the Islamic Golden Age, which during its history included most of the Middle East. While slavery was an important part also of the preceding practice of slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), it was during the Abbasid Caliphate that the slave trade to the Muslim world reached a more permanent commercial industrial scale, establishing commercial slave trade routes that were to remain for centuries.
Open chattel slavery existed in the region of Palestine until the 20th-century. The slave trade to Ottoman Palestine officially stopped in the 1870s, when the last slave ship is registered to have arrived, after which slavery appeared to have gradually diminished to a marginal phenomena in the census of 1905. However, the former slaves and their children still continued to work for their former enslavers, and were reported to still live in a state of de facto servitude in the 1930s. Many members of the Black Palestinians minority are descendants of the former slaves.
Slavery existed in the territory of modern Lebanon until the 20th century. It was formally abolished by the French in 1931. 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 where slaves had previously been imported.
The Venetian slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Venice, primarily from the Early Middle Ages to the Late Middle Ages. The slave trade was a contributing factor to the early prosperity of the young Republic of Venice as a major trading empire in the Mediterranean Sea.
The Genoese slave trade refers to the slave trade conducted by the Republic of Genoa, which was a major business during primarily the Middle Ages.