BTR News (Saudi Arabia) – Slavery is and has been a cultural practice of Arabians who drove the Arab Slave Trade. It is no surprise that slavery is still practiced by citizens of Saudia Arabia including members of their royal families. While Tiffany Sarac Haddish, who is an American comedian and actress whose father is from Eritrea, was generating an Oscar buzz by wearing an Eritrean gown as a tribute to her late father, an Eritrean woman was suing members of the Saudi Arabian royal family for enslaving her at their home in Alexandria, Virginia. Slavery is part the cultural DNA of Arabians.
Total of black slave trade in the Muslim world from Sahara, Red Sea and Indian Ocean routes through the 19th century comes to an estimated 11,500,000, “a figure not far short of the 11,863,000 estimated to have been loaded onto ships during the four centuries of the Atlantic slave trade.” (Paul E. Lovejoy, Transformation in Slavery (CUP, 1983)
Raymond Mauvy estimates a total of 14 million black slaves were traded in Islam through the 20th Century, including 300,000 for part of the 20th century. (p.57, source: “Les Siecles obsurs de l’Afrique Noire (Paris: Fayard, 1970)]
With this historical background of slavery in mind, just as in the United States, slavery still exists in both legal and illegal forms, in Saudia Arabia, its part of the culture.
Here are just a few news stories reporting complaints from members of various nations about the slavery and other abuses they face in Saudia Arabia: