Abstract
Sudanese anti-slavery activist Mende Nazer argues that persons alivetoday who have experienced enslavement have a great deal to teach historians of slavery. Nazer enjoyed a happy childhood in the Nuba Mountain region of central Sudan until in 1993, when she was around twelve years of age, Arab raiders from northern Sudan swept into hervillage, burned houses, and carried her off into domestic slavery inKhartoum. The family that enslaved her had purchased her from a slavetrader, called her “slave” (Arabic: abda),made her work from early morning until late at night, did not pay her, did not allow her to leavetheir sight, did not call her by her own name, told her that she was not Muslim, and physically and psychologically abused her for over sixyears. Nazer is one of a small number of persons today who have beenable to escape contemporary slavery and publish on their experiences.