Human Trafficking Was First Outlawed in Ancient Persia

In 539 BCE, after the Persian king Cyrus the Great conquered the city of Babylon, he issued a remarkable decree. Rather than ruling through brute force, he presented himself as a liberator. His policies were inscribed in Akkadian cuneiform on a baked clay cylinder, which served as a public declaration to his new subjects. This text outlined a radical new vision for a multicultural empire. It declared an end to the Babylonian practice of mass deportation, allowing displaced peoples, including the Jewish people held in the "Babylonian Captivity," to return to their homelands and rebuild their sacred temples.

This policy of repatriation and the abolition of forced servitude is why the Cyrus Cylinder is often hailed as the world's first charter of human rights. By granting people the freedom to leave and return to their own lands, Cyrus effectively outlawed a large-scale, state-sponsored form of human trafficking. While some historians argue the cylinder was primarily a clever piece of political propaganda to win the loyalty of conquered peoples, its principles were revolutionary for the era. The declaration’s emphasis on freedom of movement, religious tolerance, and the reversal of forced displacement established a precedent for humanitarian governance that would echo for millennia.