Slavery in Afghanistan

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Slavery in Afghanistan was present in the post-Classical history of Afghanistan, continued during the Middle Ages, and persisted into the 1920s. The origin of the enslaved people in Afghanistan shifted during different periods, and slaves in Afghanistan never had any particular ethnicity. Slavery was formally abolished in 1923. A form of sexual slavery of young boys called bacha bāzī continues into the present day as of 2025.

## History

[edit]

See also: Slavery in Iran, Slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate, Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate, Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate, and Slavery in the Mongol Empire

Prior to the Durrani Empire (1747–1823), Afghanistan often belonged to other larger states, primarily Persia. The history of the institution of Afghanistan is thus represented by the history of slavery in bigger states.

### Slave trade

[edit]

After the Islamic conquest of Persia, regions of both Persia and Afghanistan that had not converted to Islam were considered infidel regions, and as a result, they were considered legitimate targets of slave raids that were launched from regions whose populations had converted to Islam: for example Daylam in northwestern Iran and the mountainous region of Ḡūr in central Afghanistan were both exposed to slave raids which were launched from Muslim regions.[1]

It was considered legitimate to enslave war captives; during the Afghan occupation of Persia (1722–1730), for example, thousands of people were enslaved, and the Baluch made regular incursions into Southeastern Iran for the purpose of capturing people and turning them into slaves.[2] The slave traffic in Afghanistan was particularly active in the northwest, where 400 to 500 were sold annually.[2]

According to a report of an expedition to Afghanistan published in London in 1871:[3]

> The country generally between Caubul (Kabul) and the Oxus appears to be in a very lawless state; slavery is as rife as ever, and extends through Hazara, Badakshan, Wakhan, Sirikul, Kunjūt (Hunza), &c. A slave, if a strong man likely to stand work well, is, in Upper Badakshan, considered to be of the same value as one of the large dogs of the country, or of a horse, being about the equivalent of Rs 80. A slave girl is valued at from four horses or more, according to her looks &c.; men are, however, almost always exchanged for dogs. When I was in Little Tibet (Ladakh), a returned slave who had been in the Kashmir army took refuge in my camp; he said he was well enough treated as to food &c., but he could never get over having been exchanged for a dog, and constantly harped on the subject, the man who sold him evidently thinking the dog the better animal of the two. In Lower Badakshan, and more distant places, the price of slaves is much enhanced, and payment is made in coin.

In response to the Hazara uprising of 1892, the Afghan Emir Abdur Rahman Khan declared a "Jihad" against the Shiites. His large army defeated the rebellion at its center, in Oruzgan, by 1892 and the local population was being massacred. According to S. A. Mousavi, "thousands of Hazara men, women, and children were sold as slaves in the markets of Kabul and Qandahar, while numerous towers of human heads were made from the defeated rebels as a warning to others who might challenge the rule of the Amir".[4][5][6][7][8][9][10]

In Southern Iran, poor parents sold their children into slavery, and as late as around 1900, slave raids were conducted by chieftains in south Iran.[2]

### Slave market

[edit]

The markets for captives from South Iran were often in Arabia and Afghanistan; "most of the slave girls employed as domestics in the houses of the gentry at Kandahar were brought from the outlying districts of Ghayn".[2]

Most slaves were employed as agricultural laborers, domestic slaves and sexual slaves, while other slaves served in administrative positions.[11] Slaves in Afghanistan possessed some social mobility, especially those slaves who were owned by the government. Slavery was more common in towns and cities, because some Afghan tribal communities did not readily engage in the slave trade; according to some sources, the decentralized nature of Afghan tribes forced more urbanized areas to import slaves to fill labor shortages. Most slaves in Afghanistan had been imported from Persia and Central Asia.[11]

The British doctor John Alfred Gray a personal physician to Amir Abdul Rehman Khan, described:[12]

> Recently in Kabul it was very common sight to see a gang of Hazara women with their unveiled faces and their dingy dresses ragged and dirty conducted through the town by a small guard of soldiers with bayonets fixed. As the war progressed, they became so plentiful that His Highness would often reward a faithful servant or officer by presenting him with one or more as an addition to his Harem.

Segments of the Hazara people were still living in slavery and sold in the slave market of Kabul as late as in the early 20th century.[13][14][15][16][6][9][10]

#### Royal harem

[edit]

The rulers of Afghanistan customarily had a harem of four official wives as well as a large number of unofficial wives for the sake of tribal marriage diplomacy,[17] in addition to enslaved harem women known as kaniz ("slave girl"[18]) and surati or surriyat ("mistress" or concubine)[18]), guarded by the ghulam bacha (eunuchs).[6]

The rulers of Afghanistan customarily had a harem of four official wives as well as a large number of unofficial wives for the sake of tribal marriage diplomacy.[17]

In addition, they also had enslaved harem women known as kaniz (“slave girl”[19]) and surati or surriyat ("mistress"[19]), guarded by the ghulam bacha (eunuchs).[6] Habibullah Khan (r. 1901–1919) famously had at least 44 wives and hundreds of slave women (mostly Hazara) in his harem in the Harem Sara Palace, which was claimed to house about one hundred women.[20] The women of the royal harem dressed in Western fashion as far back as the reign Habibullah Khan, but did not show themselves other than completely covered outside of the enclosed area of the royal palace.

The royal harem was first abolished by king Amanullah Khan, who in 1923 freed all slaves of the royal harem as well as encouraging his wife, queen Soraya Tarzi, and the other women of the royal family to unveil and live public lives.[21] While the royal women returned to the purdah of the royal complex after the deposition of Amanullah in 1929, it was dissolved with the final unveiling of the royal women in 1959.

## Abolition

[edit]

Legal chattel slavery was abolished in Afghanistan by king Amanullah Khan in 1923. King Amanullah Khan was known as a big reformer, and introduced a number of societal reforms in Afghanistan during his reign as part of his controversial modernization program. By the time of the official abolition of slavery in 1923, there were about 700 enslaved people in Kabul, called begar or impressed labor.[6] Slaves under the age of twelve were sold for a price of 50 rupees and slaves over twelve cost 30 rupees; most wealthy families had at least one or two slaves, and it was common to exchange them as gifts.[6] Male slaves were often referred to as ghulam, and female as either kaniz (domestic maidservants) or surriyat (referring to concubines).[18] When Amanullah Khan banned slavery in the 1920s,[13] many of the slaves at the time of the abolition were of Hazara origin.[14][15][16][7][8][9][10]

Amanullah Khan banned slavery in Afghanistan in the 1923 Constitution,[22] but the practice carried on unofficially for many more years.[23] The Swede Aurora Nilsson, who lived in Kabul in 1926–1927, described the occurrence of slavery in Kabul in her memoirs,[24] as well as how a German woman, the widow of an Afridi man named Abdullah Khan, who had fled to the city with her children from her late husband's successor, was sold at public auction and obtained her freedom by being bought by the German diplomatic mission for 7,000 marks.[24]

## Modern slavery

[edit]

In Afghanistan, one of the atrocities committed by the Taliban was the enslavement of the Afghan women for use as concubines.[25][26] In 1998, eyewitnesses in Mazar e Sharif reported the hundreds of Shia girls had been abducted by Taliban fighters.[27] One source suggests that up to 400 Afghan women were involved.[28]

A form of sexual slavery of young boys called bacha bāzī in which men exploit adolescent boys for entertainment and/or sexual abuse continues into the present day as of 2024.[29][30][31]

## See also

[edit]

* Bukhara slave trade
* Khivan slave trade
* Slavery in Iran
* History of slavery in the Muslim world
* History of concubinage in the Muslim world
* Slavery in Saudi Arabia
* Slavery in Oman

## Notes

[edit]

1. ^ "BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iii. In the Islamic period up to the Mongol invasion". Encyclopædia Iranica. December 15, 1988. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
2. ^ a b c d "BARDA and BARDA-DĀRI iv. From the Mongols to the abolition of slavery". Encyclopædia Iranica. December 15, 1988. Retrieved 2022-10-12.
3. ^ Montgomerie, T. G. (1871). "Report of "The Mirzas" Exploration from Caubul to Kashgar". Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London. 41: 132–193\. doi:10.2307/3698058. ISSN 0266-6235. JSTOR 3698058.
4. ^ The History Of Afghanistan Fayż Muḥammad Kātib Hazārah’s Sirāj Al Tawārīkh By R. D. Mcchesney, M. M. Khorrami (trans.,ann.)
5. ^ Emeka Anwuna(Nwaeze): World Slave History
6. ^ a b c d e f Emadi, Hafizullah (2002). Repression, resistance, and women in Afghanistan. Praeger. ISBN 0-275-97671-8. OCLC 928478390.
7. ^ a b Hafizullah Emadi: Repression, Resistance, and Women in Afghanistan, p 60
8. ^ a b Shireen Burki: The Politics of State Intervention: Gender Politics in Pakistan, Afghanistan ..., p 102
9. ^ a b c Niamatullah Ibrahimi: The Hazaras and the Afghan State: Rebellion, Exclusion and the Struggle for ..., p 90
10. ^ a b c Raghav Sharma: Nation, Ethnicity and the Conflict in Afghanistan: Political Islam and the ..., p 80-81
11. ^ a b Hopkins, B. D. (2008). "Race, Sex and Slavery: 'Forced Labour' in Central Asia and Afghanistan in the Early 19th Century". Modern Asian Studies. 42 (4): 629–671\. doi:10.1017/S0026749X0600271X. ISSN 0026-749X. JSTOR 20488036. S2CID 145068664.
12. ^ Gray, J.A. (1895). At the Court of the Amir: A Narrative. London: Richard Bentley and Son – via Google Books.
13. ^ a b Gilles Dorronsoro: Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present p. 45-46
14. ^ a b M. Nazif Shahrani: Modern Afghanistan: The Impact of 40 Years of War
15. ^ a b Rebecca Stuh: Reading Khaled Hosseini, p 75
16. ^ a b S. A. Mousavi: The Hazaras of Afghanistan
17. ^ a b Ismati, Masoma (1987). موقف و نقش زنان افغان از اواخر هژده الی اخیر قرن نوزده [The position and role of Afghan women in Afghan society, from the late 18th to the 19th century] (in Arabic). Kabul: Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan – via Internet Archive.
18. ^ a b c Kātib Hazārah, Fayz̤ Muḥammad (2013–2016). The history of Afghanistan : Fayz Muhammad Katib Hazarah's Siraj al-tawarikh. Brill. ISBN 978-90-04-23492-5. OCLC 810773180.
19. ^ a b The History Of Afghanistan Fayż Muḥammad Kātib Hazārah’s Sirāj Al Tawārīkh By R. D. Mcchesney, M. M. Khorrami (trans.,ann.)
20. ^ Tanwir, D. M. H. (2013). Afghanistan: History, Diplomacy and Journalism Volume 1: History, Diplomacy and Journalism. Storbritannien: Xlibris UK. p.81
21. ^ Timothy Nunan: Humanitarian Invasion: Global Development in Cold War Afghanistan
22. ^ "Afghan Constitution: 1923". Afghangovernment.com. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
23. ^ "Afghan History: kite flying, kite running and kite banning By Mir Hekmatullah Sadat". Afghanmagazine.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2020. Retrieved 4 December 2011.
24. ^ a b Nilsson, Aurora (1998). Flykten från harem [Flight from a Harem] (in Swedish). Stockholm: Nykopia. ISBN 91-86936-01-8.
25. ^ Ali 2015a, p. 53–54.
26. ^ Claus, Diamond & Mills 2003, p. 7.
27. ^ Nojumi 2016, p. 168.
28. ^ Rashid 2010, pp. 75–.
29. ^ "2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Afghanistan". United States Department of State. 2024. "Although bacha bazi is officially banned, the practice has continued after the Taliban takeover. Observers reported that Taliban members were, in some cases, perpetrators of bacha bazi. ... Observers reported bacha bazi victims were hesitant to report their exploitation out of fear of punishment from the Taliban and social stigma. ... Observers report cases of bacha bazi by the Taliban and nearly all armed groups. Bacha bazi survivors reported to NGOs an 'overwhelming understanding that bacha bazi is committed by the powerful, including community leaders ....'"
30. ^ "Country policy and information note: unaccompanied children, Afghanistan". UK Visas and Immigration. November 2024. "According to a June 2024 report by UN Women 'Bacha bazi has been notoriously difficult to monitor, as it is practiced discreetly ... mainly by higher-ranking, well-connected Afghan men. While the Taliban outlawed this practice during the period of Taliban regime rule between 1996 and 2001, it has not been explicitly addressed by the DFA since their seizure of State power in August 2021. ... The USDOL 2023 report noted '…the Taliban considered some child trafficking victims, especially those engaged in bacha bazi or in armed conflict, as criminals, housing them in juvenile detention centers, and subjecting them to physical abuse and other forms of ill treatment rather than referring them to victim support services."
31. ^ Hoang, Thi (May 2022). "Human trafficking in the Afghan context: Caught between a rock and a hard place?" (PDF). Geneva: Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. p. 5\. "Given the various reports of the Taliban's human trafficking practices over the past two decades, such as the use of bacha bazi ... it can therefore be expected that, under the Taliban's rule, current human rights violations and human trafficking practices will continue and often be amplified in the name of preserving traditional values and cultural norms."

## References

[edit]

* Ali, Kecia (21 December 2015a). Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur'an, Hadith and Jurisprudence. Oneworld Publications. ISBN 978-1-78074-853-5.
* Claus, Peter J.; Diamond, Sarah; Mills, Margaret Ann (2003). South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-0-415-93919-5.
* Nojumi, N. (30 April 2016). The Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan: Mass Mobilization, Civil War, and the Future of the Region. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-312-29910-1.
* Rashid, Ahmed (2010). Taliban. Yale University Press. pp. 75–. ISBN 978-0-300-16484-8.

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