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Slavery in Qatar

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History

Slave trade

Omani route

During the Omani Empire (1692–1856), Oman was a center of the Zanzibar slave trade. Slaves were trafficked from the Swahili coast of East Africa via Zanzibar to Oman. From Oman, the slaves were exported to the rest of the Arabian Peninsula and Persia, including the Trucial States, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait. Oman's optimal location between the Arabian Sea and the Gulf region positioned it as a key player in the Zanzibar slave trade. Serving as a pivotal navigation point, Oman gained significant importance in the history of the Arabian Gulf region. The economic impact of the slave trade persisted, becoming a substantial factor in shaping Oman's economy in the post-slave trade era.

The Omani slave trade from Africa started to shrink in the late 19th century.

Hajj route

A second route of slave trade existed, with people from both Africa and East Asia, who were smuggled to Jeddah in the Arabian Peninsula in connection to the Muslim pilgrimage, Hajj, to Mecca and Medina. Victims were tricked to perform the journey willingly in the belief that they were going on the Hajj pilgrimage, or employed as servants, and then sold upon arrival. These slaves were then exported from the Hejaz to Oman, the Trucial States, Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait.

Balochistan route

In the 1940s, a third slave trade route was recorded, through which individuals from the Balochistan region were transported across the Persian Gulf, with many selling themselves or their children to escape severe poverty. In 1943, reports indicated that young women from this region were shipped via Oman and the Trucial States to Mecca, where they were sold as concubines for $350–450 following the decline in the availability of Caucasian women.

Function and conditions

Slavery was practiced by the House of Thani and the wealthy merchants, but also by ordinary villagers, who could own only one or two slaves.

Female slaves

Female slaves were primarily used as either domestic servants, or as concubines (sex slaves). The PDQ Oil Company had 250 slave laborers during its first year of production in Qatar in 1949.

Black African women were primarily used as domestic house slaves rather than exclusively for sexual services, while white Caucasian women (normally Circassian or Georgian) were preferred as concubines (sex slaves), and when the main slave route of white slave girls was reduced after Russia's conquest of the Caucasus and Central Asia in the mid 19th-century (reducing the Black Sea slave trade and the Kazakh Khanate slave trade), Balochistan and "Red" Ethiopian (Oromo and Sidamo) women became the preferred targets for sexual slavery. Non-African female slaves were sold in the Persian Gulf where they were bought for marriage; these were fewer and often Armenian, Georgian, or from Baluchistan and India.

Female slaves were often used for sexual services as concubines for a period of time, and then sold or married off to other slaves; the slave owners would arranged both marriages and divorce for their slaves, and the offspring of two slaves would become slaves in turn. It was common for slave owners to claim sexual services of married female slaves when the slave husband was away for long periods of time, to hunt for pearls or fish or similar labor, and sexual abuse was a common reason given when female slaves applied for manumission at the British Agency.

Male slaves

During the flourishing period of the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century, male slaves played a pivotal role in the burgeoning pearl industry of Qatar, particularly as pearl divers. The thriving pearl diving sector not only led to the establishment of coastal settlements but also triggered significant migration to Qatar. Subsequently, the nation witnessed a substantial economic upturn attributed to the prosperity of the pearl fishing industry. This economic boom facilitated Qatar's integration into the global economy and marked the initiation of globalization in the region. Predominantly of African descent, these slaves, constituting approximately a quarter to a third of Qatar's population, were prominently engaged in the cultivation and exploitation of pearls and used in a number of other tasks: as soldiers, farm labourers, cash crop workers, maritime sailors, dock workers, porters, irrigation canal workers, fishermen, and domestic servants.

It was common for Arab men to use the sexual services of enslaved African women, but a male African slave who had sexual relations with a local "pure blood" Arab woman would be executed to preserve tribal honor and social status, regardless if the couple had married or not.

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