Mauritania Abolishes Slavery — Twice
Mauritania abolished slavery by presidential ordinance in July 1981, the last country in the world to do so. The ordinance freed slaves in law and provided for compensation to owners, but it created no criminal offence — there was nothing to charge anyone with, and no prosecution followed for a quarter of a century. Slavery had already been abolished twice before on paper, by the French colonial administration and again at independence in 1960. A law criminalising slavery was finally passed in 2007, and a 2015 law declared it a crime against humanity and raised the penalties. The first convictions came only after that. The practice is hereditary and follows the caste line between the Beydane (Arab-Berber) elite and the Haratine, the descendants of enslaved black Africans who form a large share of the population; enforcement is complicated by the fact that many in servitude do not identify as enslaved and by the reluctance of authorities to accept complaints. Anti-slavery campaigners, most prominently Biram Dah Abeid, have been repeatedly imprisoned. Estimates of the number of people still living in conditions of hereditary servitude vary widely and are contested by the government, which maintains the practice has been eradicated.
- Year: 1981 CE
- Category: Social
