The British had an ongoing policy of pressure against the Ottoman Empire to prohibit the slave trade.
This ban was followed in 1884 by a ban on the import of white women; this law was directed against the import of white women (mainly from Caucasus and usually Circassians via the Circassian slave trade), which were the preferred choice for harem concubines among the Egyptian upper class.
[1][2] British abolitionists in Egypt opened a home for former female slaves to assist them and protect them from falling victim to prostitution, which was in operation from 1884 until 1908.
[3] In 1901 a French observer shared his impression that slavery in Egypt was over "in fact and in law"; the Egyptian census of 1907 no longer listed any slaves, and in 1911 Repression of Slave Trade Departments were closed and transformed to Sudan.
[3] While it was acknowledged that slavery itself was not banned and still existed by 1908, it was by then no longer visible enough to be a focus of Western criticism.