Mende Nazer

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Mende Nazer was a slave in Sudan.[1] She was made famous by her transfer to England to serve a diplomatic family.

Mende Nazer reports that she was abducted and sold into slavery in Sudan when she was a child of twelve or thirteen (she doesn't know when she was born). She lived in a village of the Karko Nuba in the Nuba mountains of Sudan with her family. The village was attacked one night. Mende fled with her family into the mountains. She became separated from her family, and when a man caught her and told her he would protect her, she believed him. She had already seen people killed in front of her. The man told her to stay with a group of children. Later, the raiders came and took all of the children to the town of Dilling, there the children were taken by families to serve as servants.

Mende also reports that she was taken by a woman from Khartoum whom she served for six or seven years. She had to do all the hard work of the household, and sleep on the floor of the garden shed. She was never paid anything for her labor, and was frequently beaten. She wanted to leave, but had no money and nowhere to go, and was afraid to go to the police. The woman of the house said that she owned Mende, and called Mende her 'Abda', or slave.

Mende was sent to London to work as a domestic. After several months Mende escaped and claimed asylum. At first, the Home Office rejected her claim in October 2002. In November, the Home Office overturned its decision and granted Mende asylum based on further information provided by her many supporters including such human rights groups as Anti-Slavery International.

The British Home Office decision, sent to Mende Nazer’s asylum lawyers, states: "In view of the widespread publication of her book and the high profile given to her claims both in Sudan and elsewhere, I am satisfied that Ms. Nazer would face difficulties which would bring her within the scope of the 1951 convention were she to be returned to Sudan. For these reasons it has been decided to recognise her as a refugee and grant her Indefinite Leave to Remain in the United Kingdom" [2]. The decision to grant asylum was thus reflecting the fact that her well publicised story would greatly harm her subsequent chances of life in Sudan, rather than giving credibility to her story.

Some elements of her story, however, have been disputed. After London’s Sunday Telegraph printed in September 2000 a second-hand account of Nazer’s experience as a slave in Al-Koronky’s household, the diplomat sued the paper for libel. In July 2002, before the case went to trial, the paper retracted its story and agreed to pay damages [3].

Mende Nazer has written a book, together with Damien Lewis, Slave. It is published by Virago in the United Kingdom and Public Affairs in the United States, and is also available in Germany, Italy, Spain, Finland and Norway.

Contents

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Woman's Hour - Mende Nazer
  2. ^ Home Office grants asylum to Sudanese 'slave'
  3. ^ Mende Nazer: Fighting for Asylum

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links


Persondata
NAME Nazer, Mende
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Nazer, Zainab (arab name used at school)
SHORT DESCRIPTION former Sudanese slave, abolitionist
DATE OF BIRTH ca. 1980
PLACE OF BIRTH Nuba Mountains, Sudan
DATE OF DEATH
PLACE OF DEATH
Languages