Slavery in Asia
Main article: History of slavery
Persian slave in the Khanate of Khiva, 19th century
As late as 1908, women slaves were still sold in the Ottoman Empire.[78] A slave market for captured Russian and Persian slaves was centred in the Central Asian khanate of Khiva.[79] According to Sir Henry Bartle Frere (who sat on the Viceroy's Council), there were an estimated 8 million or 9 million slaves in India in 1841. In Malabar, about 15% of the population were slaves. Slavery was abolished in both Hindu and Muslim India by the Indian Slavery Act V. of 1843.[11][80] In Istanbul about one-fifth of the population consisted of slaves.[70]
In East Asia, the Imperial government formally abolished slavery in China in 1906, and the law became effective in 1910.[81] Slave rebellion in China at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century was so extensive that owners eventually converted the institution into a female-dominated one.[82] The Nangzan in Tibetan history were, according to Chinese sources, hereditary household slaves.[83] Indigenous slaves existed in Korea. Slavery was officially abolished with the Gabo Reform of 1894 but remained extant in reality until 1930. During the Joseon Dynasty (1392–1910) about 30% to 50% of the Korean population were slaves.[84] In late 16th century Japan, slavery was officially banned; but forms of contract and indentured labor persisted alongside the period penal codes' forced labor.[85]
In Southeast Asia, a quarter to a third of the population of some areas of Thailand and Burma were slaves.[11] The hill tribe people in Indochina were "hunted incessantly and carried off as slaves by the Siamese (Thai), the Anamites (Vietnamese), and the Cambodians."[86] The Siamese military expedition had been converted into a slave hunting operation on a large scale.[87]