Slavery in the Trucial States

Slave market 1907
The Pearl Fishery in the Persian Gulf - The Graphic 1881. At the time, the pearl industry was dominated by African slave labor.
Pearl divers in the Persian Gulf. At the time, the pearl industry was dominated by slave labor.
Oil field 1932. The British Foreign Office unsuccessfully asked the Iraq Petroleum Company not to use slave labor in the Gulf.

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.

The year that the Trucial States officially abolished slavery is unclear. Some say that bondage was officially outlawed in 1963, when the Trucial rulers signed an agreement decreeing the abolition of slavery. Others say that it was in 1971, when the Trucial States joined the UN as the United Arab Emirates and accepted the UN's Conventions against slavery. However, the legislation around slavery remained unclear because the 1963 decree was never actually issued, and the UN law of 1971 was not obligatory.[1] 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.


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