Stolen: A Story of Modern-day Slavery

American Rattlesnake ^ | March 27, 2011 | Marion D.S. Dreyfus

[OddLane]

In an excellent documentary called Stolen, which sets out to document a family reunion in the sole region in Africa where Spanish is spoken, filmmakers Ayala and Fallshaw uncover a bigger story than they had originally planned.

What they find is a pocket of slavery still practiced in Western Sahara, Morocco, Mauritania, and elsewhere in Arab-African societies. The initial impetus for the film is the re-union of a generational family under UN auspices, a service the UN provides if the correct paperwork is filled out; family members long separated are brought together for a joyous 5-day reunion. What the documentarians quickly discovered, without intending to, was the fact that the family was enslaved to the “white grandmother,” Deido, a Muslim who considered herself the loving doyenne of her Spanish-speaking, Christian slave family.

Deido had received Kemil as a child to serve as a nanny for her own son. Since that time, the little girl grew and had children of her own. I kept wondering where her husband was, but there is no husband; Kemil’s children are the offspring of the slave-owner, who has unquestioned droit de seigneur with any women, who are regarded as property. Getting married requires documentation, and few bother with marriage, as it is a corrupt process. All children from such couplings are left in the care of their indentured mothers, but may also be given away at will by the owners.

[OddLane]

You can find a deeper exploration of the film's subject here.

[Fiddlstix]

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[OddLane]

Why military interventions on behalf of unknown, nebulous groups of rebels in the Middle East/North Africa might not be such a good idea?

Food for thought.

[Wuli]

ping

[browniexyz]

“A pocket” of slavery of Africa? No way. A friend of mine in the Peace Corps reported it throughout the Sudan.

[piasa]

….
Predictably, the family that is the subject of the filmmakers’ inquiry is forced by their governing bodies, in the Western Sahara’s Polisario, to renounce the documentary evidence seen in a screening in Sydney, Australia, clearly under pain of punishment and possible loss of life had they not cooperated. The Polisario physically shipped the family to Australia, where they carried signs and spoke on the record to media to denounce their own previously taped testimony.
Implicated in the perpetuation of slavery is African United Nations officials, as they brings relatives together, but take a stark hands-off attitude to removing vestiges of centuries’ old subjugation in northern Africa. From the evidence of surveillance, instantaneous police appearances and red-tape manacling the filmmakers, it is clear that only extremely dedicated reformers can affect this situation, and the UN reps are not those daring reformers-in-waiting.
…