Simon Deng Biography

Simon Aban Deng is a Sudanese refugee who was a victim of child slavery. Deng, a native of the Shilluk Kingdom in southern Sudan, worked as a domestic slave in northern Sudan for several years. Deng was reared as a Christian in a big household. Despite periodic attacks by the Sudanese army, which burnt houses and scattered cattle, his hamlet of Tonga remained a tranquil farming community. When Deng was eight years old, the Sudanese army marched through his hamlet, and one of the first things I was instructed as a youngster was to escape for my life if the Arab soldiers came. Deng was out tending to his family's goats when the military arrived in transport vehicles. He and his companions attempted to flee, but one was shot in the legs and the other was hit in the back. In his hamlet, two blind seniors were burnt alive in their houses. I believed I was going to die, Deng says. Deng's family and neighbors were displaced by the attack, and hundreds packed into one small house in Malakal. Deng volunteered to assist an Arab guy in transporting his things to a ship on the adjacent Nile River. However, the nine-year-old was taken by the guy and found himself floating away. He was subsequently sold as a slave to a kidnapper's relative in the north. Deng's master forbade him from returning home. They showed him a photo of a guy with his feet and hands severed and warned him that if he complained, he would face the same fate. Deng became their property or abeed (black slave), watching after their cattle, scrubbing their dishes, consuming only scraps, sleeping on straw, and being beaten often. His owners, like the majority of families in northern Sudan, were Muslim, and they urged him to convert to Islam and adopt him as their own son. Deng, on the other hand, resisted and managed to flee. Deng went on to become a national swimming champion after working as a courier in the Sudanese parliament. He is now a citizen of the United States and works as a lifeguard on Coney Island. He has spoken to audiences all throughout the country. He was asked to appear before the United Nations Human Rights Commission in Geneva, Switzerland, in May 2005. He began the Sudan Freedom Walk in March 2006, walking 300 miles from the United Nations offices in New York City to the Capitol in Washington, DC, to demand an end to enslavement and slaughter in Sudan. The trek ended with a visit with President Bush at the White House. Deng went on a fact-finding and humanitarian relief expedition to southern Sudan and Darfur in May 2006, where he met with senior Sudanese leaders, including President Salva Kiir of Southern Sudan.

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