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for a specified period, to continue to serve their former masters under the same conditions as if a contract of service existed between the parties.
The Abyssinian Government may foresee some difficulty in adopting this suggestion. If, however, it feels unable to go to the length of the immediate abolition of the legal status of slavery, could it not at any rate grant slaves the right to obtain manumission at their request, provided compensation were paid to the owner, or provided the slaves undertook, on pain of penalties to be defined by law, to continue to work for their master under the same conditions as an ordinary hired worker, except that the master would not be bound to pay them wages during the specified period? The law would lay down the maximum compensation or period of service which the owner could claim as a condition of liberation, according to the age and sex of the slave.
Should higher compensation or a longer period of service have been stipulated, this would ipso facto be reduced to the maximum laid down by the law.
The wives of slaves and children born even before the promulgation of the 1924 Edict, which ensures freedom to all persons enslaved after that date, would be included in the liberation acquired by adult slaves through redemption by such means.
It is fully understood that all further enslavement will continue to be absolutely prohibited.
(e) Another possibly effective measure would be to increase from year to year the obligations attached by law or by custom to the ownership of slaves, either in the form of taxation—which might even be imposed on a progressive scale or in the form of conditions as to the housing and feeding of slaves. As regards the latter suggestion, the labour legislation of some colonial States might provide a useful basis for the Abyssinian Government.
(f) In any case, it would be useful that the Abyssinian Government should, if it has not yet done so, revise its Edict of 1923 and prohibit the enslavement of all persons even in the course of warlike operations.
To be in a
(g) The Committee does not at present feel able to make any other suggestions. position to do so effectively, it would have to possess a detailed knowledge of the special circum- stances of the country, a knowledge which can only be possessed by persons directly acquainted with the present state of the country.
Towards the close of its proceedings, the Committee received through Lord Lugard a note regarding the Emperor's intentions, which throws light on the future. According to the informa- tion contained in the note, which is attached to the present report (Appendix C), the Emperor proposes to take measures which forestall some of the recommendations of the Committee.
15. How can those Moslem States or Sultanates, which have up to the present maintained the system of slavery, be induced to abolish this institution?
In the first place as was suggested in the Temporary Commission's 1925 report their admis- sion to the League of Nations should, if they desire to enter the League, be made conditional upon the abolition of slavery in law and in fact, by degrees or at one stroke.
Every Power with which these States or Sultanates seek or agree to conclude treaties should likewise endeavour to obtain the insertion of a clause in the treaties to be concluded to abolish slavery.
The influence exerted by the Powers with a view to the abolition of the status of slavery would be strengthened if the Governments of these States or Sultanates further felt that the League of Nations was constantly watching them through the setting up of the Permanent Slavery Commission suggested in paragraph 74 of the present report.
It is stated that already, under the influence of world public opinion, slaves are no longer sold openly but in secret in the Sultanates of Arabia.
The assistance of the Moslem religious authorities could improve the present position. These authorities might remind the population of the principles of their religion which, although it admits slavery, enjoins its adherents to treat slaves kindly and is even favourable to their liberation.
CHAPTER II.
SLAVE-RAIDING AND SIMILAR ACTS.
(a) Raids properly so-called.
A. Survey of the Situation.
16. According to the 1925 report, slave-raids had practically disappeared except on the borders of the Sahara Desert, where raids were occasionally organised by nomad robbers. The report observed, however, that slave-raids organised by Abyssinians were said to have occurred both in and outside Abyssinian territory.
17. The slave-raids on the borders of the Sahara are, it would seem, likely to become fewer and fewer. According to the information supplied to the Committee, most of the regions in which the captors used to operate or those in which they used to sell their captives, such as South Morocco, South Tripolitania, and certain oases in the Libyan Desert, such as those of Kufra and Fezzan, have now passed under the effective administration and jurisdiction of the colonising Powers.
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The same information would tend to show that the supervision exercised by the police, organ- ised by France and by Italy for the desert zones under their respective influence, continues to be both vigilant and active. It may be hoped that, with continuous progress in the rapid transmission of news, nomads moving from well to well will find it increasingly difficult to escape all permanent control.
According to the Spanish Government, the number of Spanish Guards along the frontier of the Rio de Oro Colony was increased some years ago, close contact being maintained between them. This will make it more difficult for slave-raiders to operate in this area and take refuge in Spanish territory when pursued by French méharistes (camel corps).
18. Documents published by the British Government with regard to raids carried out by Abyssinians outside Abyssinia affirm that the British Government has on several occasions made representations to the Abyssinian Government concerning slave raids in Kenya, Uganda and the Sudan, but sometimes in connection with hunting or cattle-raiding, and, to prevent the repetition of such raids, the Governments of these territories have geen forced, at great expense to themselves, to instal and maintain military posts near the Abyssinian border, or to give instructions for frequent armed patrols on the frontier.
A raid of this kind occurred on March 21st and 22nd, 1932. According to the Abyssinian Government, some groups living in Abyssinia wished to make reprisals for certain acts of violence committed against another group by inhabitants of the Sudan. According to the British documents, these reprisals were not justified, as the Sudan authorities had undertaken to punish the inhabitants of that contry of whose counduct the Abyssinians had had to complain.
19. On the other hand, trustworthy persons report that even in recent times slave-raids have occurred within Abyssinia itself. The western districts of the country in particular have, it is said, been desolated by raids. The Committee, however, possesses no proof of the accuracy of these assertions. Documents supplied to the Committee do, it is true, show that judicial enquiries conducted by the Anglo-Egyptian Government would seem to have proved that, in 1927, Arab subjects of Abyssinia sold in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan a fairly large number of Berta slaves, natives of Abyssinia. The Committee, however, does not know whether these slaves were obtained during recent raids or whether they had long been in a state of slavery.
(b) Inter-tribal Wars and Other Raids.
20. As stated in the 1925 report, the occupation and pacification by the colonial Powers of the territories whose guardianship they have assumed, have put an end to tribal warfare and have thus dried up what was, next to slave-raids, the principal source of slavery, though a far less important one. Wherever necessary these results have, it is said, since been enhanced by the steady growth and expansion and the increased efficacy of the administrative and judicial services of the colonising Powers, and likewise, though to a less degree, by the influence of other civilising factors.
(c) The Capture of Individuals.
21. The occasional capture-with or without violence, by ruse or threats-of any individual to reduce him to slavery was of more or less frequent occurrence in Africa even when the European nations began to gain a hold on the continent.
The abolition of the status of slavery by these nations in the countries under their control rendered this practice ineffective. Moreover, under the laws of most of these Powers, the capture of individuals is now an offence. Such occurrences are to-day very rare, even in territories where justice is administered by native courts; this is a result of the measures of supervision which are referred to in paragraph 7 of the present report and which were adopted in order that the judgments of these tribunals should not sanction customs favouring slavery.
22. In Abyssinia, as has already been stated in paragraph 8 of the present report, the Edict of September 15th, 1923, made it an offence punishable with death to capture persons in order to enslave them except in the case of warfare. The Edict of March 31st, 1924, inflicts severe penalties on any person who re-enslaves a freed slave by ruse or by holding out promises. The Committee, however, has no information concerning the extent to which these provisions are applied.
B. Suggestions.
23. The Committee desires to make the following suggestions:
(a) That, in countries which have not yet adopted such measures, the Governments concerned should consider the possibility of prohibiting the possession of firearms without special permission, the restriction of the importation of firearms and especially of rifled barrels and arms of precision and the gift or sale of these arms being rightly contemplated by the signatory Powers of the General Act of the Brussels Conference as one of the most appropriate means of preventing slave-raiding;
(b) That the Governments concerned should even consider the possibility of compelling the inhabitants to hand over temporarily any arms whatever to the authorities, whenever such disarmament is considered desirable to prevent inter-tribal wars or the formation of armed bands;
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