{{East African slavery and the Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade are rarely discussed either in local textbooks or at global forums where the West African slave trade is a common topic of debate.}}<\/p>\n
\u201cLess is known about East African slavery because it\u2019s been seen as a tabu,\u201d said senior curator at the Shimoni Slavery Museum and Heritage Site, Patrick Abungu.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere has been denial on the part of many descendants of slaves, primarily because there\u2019s a stigma associated with slavery.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is why the current exhibition at Alliance Francaise entitled \u201cSilent Memories: the unbroken chains\u201d is so important. It\u2019s bound to clear the air and clarify what actually happened in East Africa with regard to slavery.<\/p>\n
Presented on the occasion of the United Nations International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition, the photo-text exhibition including an equally illuminating documentary film scripted and narrated by Abungu, was produced with support from Unesco, Alliance Francaise and the French Embassy to Kenya as well as the National Museums of Kenya.<\/p>\n
The first stunning revelation that the Shimoni Museum\u2019s lead researcher, Abungu, brings to light is that slavery has been endemic in the region for centuries.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt wasn\u2019t commercialised, however, until outside forces came to the Coast. After that, Africans were marched from as far as Malawi, Mozambique and Congo as well as from Uganda, and Kenya to Shimoni caves where they were held until dhows came to take them to the slave market in Zanzibar,\u201d said Abungu who led the National Museums research team which has unearthed much of the information in the exhibition.<\/p>\n
Using archival photographs and drawings together with maps of the various slave routes in the region and detailed texts, the exhibition offers an excellent overview of what slavery and the slave trade has meant both in the past and present.<\/p>\n
In Abungu\u2019s view, present day slavery is not so very different from the commercial slave trade that was abolished by the British in the mid-nineteenth century and specifically in Kenya in 1907, although the practice continued covertly until the mid-1940s.<\/p>\n
Modern-day slavery may be called by different names, such as sex trafficking, child labour, child soldiers and even wage slavery, but these manifestations still deprive human beings of their liberty, said Abungu who includes indentured labour such as was found during the colonial era among the myriad forms of enslavement.<\/p>\n
NMG<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
{{East African slavery and the Trans-Indian Ocean slave trade are rarely discussed either in local textbooks or at global forums where the West African slave trade is a common topic of debate.}} \u201cLess is known about East African slavery because it\u2019s been seen as a tabu,\u201d said senior curator at the Shimoni Slavery Museum and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2000053593,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[99],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-15926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","tag-greatlakesnews","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000053593,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton15926.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15926"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15926\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000053593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15926"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=15926"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=15926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}