James Aguer, chair of the Dinka Committee, is being presented with the 2006 Anti-Slavery Award for his work against slavery in Sudan.

Since the late-1980s, James has been actively involved in seeking, identifying and securing the release of Dinka children and women abducted from their homes in Southern Sudan and forced into slavery.

During the civil war between the Sudan Government and the Sudan People's Liberation Movement/Army, which raged from 1983 to 2005, conflict, raids and abductions in the Bahr-el-Ghazal region were carried out by government-backed militias, leading to the enslavement of over 14,000 men, women and children between 1986 and 2002.

James is himself a member of the Dinka people, the main ethnic group from which thousands were abducted and enslaved during the conflict. Originally from the South, James moved to the capital Khartoum in the mid-1980s after the outbreak of violence. The violence involved raids by Arabic-speaking militia, the Murhaleen, who looted, killed, destroyed property, and abducted women and children and forced them into slavery.

In response to these atrocities, James and some fellow activists within the Dinka community decided to work to secure the release of those who had been enslaved. To achieve this, he and five colleagues established the Dinka Committee in September 1989. The work was extremely dangerous and, initially, unsupported. For many years the Government of Sudan rejected allegations of slavery and targeted those campaigning against it. As a result, James has been arrested over 30 times and imprisoned on many occasions.

Soon after it was established, the founding members travelled undercover to the cattle camps of west Sudan, where they heard many of the abductees were forced to work. They posed as people looking for work and lived in the camps for internally displaced people. Once the Murhaleen discovered their true mission, three of the Committee members were killed.

From 1996, the Committee secured some external support for their work from international organisations. And in 1999, under pressure to take action, the Government of Sudan set up the Committee for the Eradication of Abduction of Women and Children (CEAWC) to identify and release abductees. From the beginning James and the Dinka Committee have been closely involved in the work of the CEAWC.

Since it was founded, the Dinka Committee has secured the release of over 4,000 people. Throughout this time James has been personally involved in regular visits to the areas where abductees are kept and in negotiating for their release and repatriation with local leaders, government bodies, NGOs and international bodies. He has used his own home in Khartoum as a reception centre for released and escaped children and adults believed to have relatives in the area with whom they could be reunited.

Now is a critical time for James and his work. With the peace agreement signed in January 2005 ending the civil war, and international attention focussed on the crisis in Darfur, it has been difficult to maintain momentum in identifying and releasing the many thousands of people who remain enslaved. James hopes that the Anti-Slavery Award will re-focus efforts to bring their plight to an end.

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