Boys are circumcised. They are, however, not taught to read or write Arabic. At current market prices, that also happens to be the price of two goats. They are now being reintegrated into their Dinka communities. The Sudanese government denies that slavery goes on in its territory.
CSI operation raisees many moral issues.
Organisations like the United Nations Children's Fund argue that it is morally wrong to pay for the slaves, because it condones or promotes slavery. I went to Zurich to put the question directly to CSI's president, Hans Stuckelberger, and his two operatives who actually pay the money to the redeemers and free the slaves. They also emphasised that there was no evidence that buying back the slaves promoted the trade. CSI officials were at pains to explain that the system of slave redemption was evolved by the Southern Sudanese communities themselves. We met a young woman called Deng.