Slavery in the Trucial States is recorded in this encyclopedia from the source named below.
Overview
Chattel slavery existed in the Trucial States (1892–1971), which later formed the United Arab Emirates. The Trucial States consisted of the Sheikdoms Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Sharjah, Ajman, Umm Al Quwain, Fujairah, and Ras Al Khaimah. The region was mainly supplied with enslaved people from the Indian Ocean slave trade, but humans were also trafficked to the area from Oman and Persia. Slaves were used in the famous pearl fish industry and later in the oil industry, as well as sex slaves and domestic servants. Many members of the Afro-Arabian minority are descendants of the former slaves. The year that the Trucial States officially abolished slavery is rather unclear. Some say that bondage was officially outlawed in 1963, when the Trucial rulers signed an agreement decreeing the abolition of slavery. Others say that it was in 1971, when the Trucial States joined the UN as the United Arab Emirates and accepted the UN's Conventions against slavery. However, the legislation around slavery remained unclear because the 1963 decree was never actually issued, and the UN law of 1971 was not obligatory. Slavery of people from Africa and East Asia was succeeded by the modern Kafala system of poor workers from the same region where slaves had previously been imported.
Source and reuse
The descriptive text above is drawn from the English-language encyclopedia article Slavery in the Trucial States, reused under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence and attributed in the sources block on this page. Figures in the infobox come from Wikidata and carry that project's own provenance; they should be checked against the cited source before being relied on.
Editorial note
This record is a sourced summary, not original research. Where the underlying material is silent on a point, this article is silent too. Last reviewed 2026-09-23.