Slavery in Oman formed part of the wider western Indian Ocean slave system. Omani merchants and rulers were connected to East Africa, the Swahili coast, Zanzibar, Arabia, and the Persian Gulf. Captives, many of them from eastern Africa, entered maritime trade and were used in households, agriculture, transport, and other forms of labor. In the nineteenth century the Omani political and commercial sphere in Zanzibar linked inland caravan routes and clove plantations to markets around the Indian Ocean.[1]

Slavery in this region was not confined to plantation labor. Enslaved people could be domestic servants, sailors, agricultural workers, artisans, or concubines. Manumission and incorporation into households existed alongside ownership and coerced labor; these possibilities did not remove the enslaver's legal and practical control.

Abolition and law

Oman formally abolished legal slavery in 1970, during the political transition that followed the accession of Sultan Qaboos bin Said. The date marks the withdrawal of legal recognition from slavery, rather than proof that every dependent labor relationship ended immediately.

Later Omani law criminalized conduct involving slavery. Article 261 of the 1978 Penal Code prescribed imprisonment for bringing a person into or out of Oman in a state of slavery, disposing of, receiving, purchasing, or keeping a person in slavery.[2] The same legal database treats prohibitions on slavery, forced labor, trafficking, and servitude as separate questions. This distinction matters because present-day forced labor or migrant-worker abuse should not be described as legal chattel slavery without evidence that the powers of ownership are exercised.

References

↑ Gwyn Campbell (ed.), Indian Ocean Slavery in the Age of Abolition, Yale University Press

↑ Antislavery in Domestic Legislation, “Oman”