Oman abolishes slavery in a landmark legal reform

Story: 1970 C.E.  |  Last updated: January 1, 1970

In 1970 C.E., the Sultanate of Oman formally abolished slavery, joining a wave of legal reforms that swept through the Arabian Peninsula and beyond in the twentieth century. The move came as Sultan Qaboos bin Said Al Said took power in a palace coup, ushering in a period of rapid modernization — and making the outlawing of slavery one of his government’s earliest and most consequential acts.

Key facts

• Oman slavery abolition: The 1970 C.E. decree formally outlawed the ownership and trade of enslaved people throughout Omani territory, giving legal force to a prohibition that had been nominally encouraged but not enforced by earlier administrations.
• Arabian Peninsula timeline: Oman’s abolition followed Saudi Arabia and Yemen, both of which formally outlawed slavery in 1962 C.E., making the early 1960s and 1970s a pivotal window for legal emancipation across the region.
• Global abolition history: Oman was among the last countries worldwide to criminalize slavery — a fact that reflects both how deeply the institution was embedded in parts of the Gulf economy and how much the twentieth century compressed centuries of gradual reform into a few decades.

A practice rooted in the Indian Ocean trade

Slavery in Oman was not an isolated phenomenon. For centuries, Oman sat at the center of one of the world’s most active maritime trading networks, connecting East Africa, the Persian Gulf, South Asia, and Southeast Asia. Enslaved people — many of them captured or purchased along the Swahili Coast and in the Great Lakes region of Africa — were transported through Omani-controlled ports, particularly Zanzibar, which served as the commercial hub of the East African slave trade until the nineteenth century.

Britain pressured Oman to restrict the slave trade as early as 1822 C.E. under the Moresby Treaty, and again in 1845 C.E. under the Hamerton Treaty. These agreements limited but did not eliminate the trade. Domestic slavery — the ownership of enslaved people within Oman itself — persisted well into the twentieth century, with limited enforcement of any restrictions that existed on paper.

Sultan Qaboos and the 1970 modernization push

The formal abolition in 1970 C.E. was inseparable from the broader political transformation underway. When Qaboos bin Said deposed his father, Sultan Said bin Taimur, he inherited a country with almost no public schools, no paved roads outside Muscat, and a social structure that had changed little in generations. Slavery was part of that inherited structure.

The new government moved quickly. Among the first decrees were measures to open schools, build infrastructure, and modernize legal frameworks — including the prohibition on slavery. For many of Oman’s formerly enslaved population, who were largely of East African descent, formal legal freedom arrived alongside access to education and public services for the first time.

The speed of the transformation was remarkable even by regional standards. Within a single generation, Oman went from a largely closed, pre-industrial sultanate to a country with a functioning civil administration, a modern military, and formal legal equality regardless of origin.

Lasting impact

Oman’s abolition was part of the final chapter of formal, state-sanctioned slavery worldwide. The mid-twentieth century saw a cascade of abolitions — in parts of West and Central Africa, across the Arabian Peninsula, and in South and Southeast Asia — that closed off the last jurisdictions where enslavement remained explicitly legal.

At a global level, these final abolitions helped build the legal architecture that now underpins international human rights law. The 1956 U.N. Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery had called on member states to criminalize not just the slave trade but the institution itself — Oman’s 1970 C.E. decree was part of the world’s slow, uneven compliance with that standard.

For Oman’s Afro-Omani community — descendants of enslaved East Africans who had lived in the Gulf for generations — the legal change also opened a path toward cultural recognition. Their musical traditions, particularly the Leiwah and Razha performance traditions, have since been recognized by UNESCO as part of Oman’s intangible cultural heritage.

Blindspots and limits

Legal abolition and practical freedom are not the same thing. Scholars and human rights organizations have documented that debt bondage, forced labor, and coercive domestic work arrangements persisted in parts of Oman and the broader Gulf region for decades after 1970 C.E. The kafala sponsorship system, which ties migrant workers’ legal status to their employers, has been widely criticized by groups including Human Rights Watch as creating conditions that can approximate forced labor — a reminder that formal legal milestones do not automatically reach those most vulnerable.

The historical record of exactly how many people were enslaved in Oman at the time of abolition, and what became of them in the years that followed, remains thin. The voices of formerly enslaved people and their families are largely absent from official histories of the period.

Read more

For more on this story, see: Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom — Wikipedia

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