Slavemaster to abolitionist

As a member of Mauritania's slave-owning class, Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane could have had anything he wanted as a present for his circumcision ceremony: a toy, money, a camel, or, as his brother would choose, a bicycle.

But the 7-year-old wanted something more sinister.

He chose Yebawa Ould Keihel, a young boy with skin the color of coal. At that moment, Abdel became a slave master.

It's an experience that's common here in Mauritania, a vast country in West Africa's Sahara Desert where activists and the United Nations estimate 10% to 20% of people are enslaved -- usually dark-skinned people who have lighter-skinned masters.

For the owners of slaves, a group of Arab people called the White Moors who raided sub-Saharan Africa for slaves centuries ago, this is no big deal.

"It was as if I were picking out a toy," Abdel, now 47, said of choosing Yebawa as his slave. "For me, it was as if he were a thing -- a thing that pleased me. This idea came to me because there were all these stories about him which made me laugh -- that he talked in his sleep, that he was a bit chubby and a bit clumsy, that he was always losing the animals he was supposed to be watching over and was then always getting punished for this. So for me, he was an interesting and comic figure.

Sadder still, Yebawa didn't consider himself human either -- at least not in the way Abdel was. Mauritania's slaves are very often brainwashed by their masters into thinking they are less than human and that their place is at the bottom of a rigid and still-enforced caste system that allows them only to serve their masters without pay or free will.

But there's a surprising twist in Abdel's story.

It's one that shows how far Mauritanians have come in their effort to combat slavery.

And how very much more must be done before the hundreds of thousands of slaves and former slaves here can truly be set free
http://www.foxnews.com/

I thought once the US abolished slavery it was abolished worldwide.  After reading this article I know now in some country like Mauritania where slavery is just another thing that you see and deal with in a normal everyday life. I think having slavery in a country makes it look barbaric and uncivilized. If I had any say I would help abolish slavery.