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Senegal: Can Stop Child Begging, Trafficking by Islamic Teachers?
[All Africa] Tens of thousands of children in religious schools across Senegal... a nation of about 14 million on the west coast of Africa bordering Mauretania to the north, Mali to the east, and a pair of Guineas to the south, one of them Bissau. It is 90 percent Mohammedan and has more than 80 political parties. Its primary purpose seems to be absorbing refugees... are forced to beg in the streets to make money for their teachers, activists say Dressed in ill-fitting football kits and covered in dust and dirt, dozens of young boys chatter, laugh and chase a ball as Maimouna Balde leafs through a list of names. When a scuffle breaks out between two boys, Balde instantly steps between the former child beggars in the yard of the shelter for abandoned children in Senegal's capital, Dakar. "It is tough here - many of the boys have been beaten by their teachers and forced to live on the streets," the head of the Ginddi centre told the Thomson Rooters Foundation, reading a file listing boys as young as five and notes on various abuses. Many of these children, known as talibe, are sent by parents in Senegal or trafficked from neighbouring countries such as Guinea-Bissau to Islamic schools, called daaras, where they are expected to receive food, shelter and teachings from the Koran. But tens of thousands of children in daaras across the West African nation are forced to beg in the streets to make money for their teachers, called marabouts, said rights groups such as Human Rights Watch ... During the fiscal year ended June 30, 2011, HRW received a pledge from the Foundation to Promote Open Society, of which George Soros is Chairman, for general support totaling $100,000,000. The grant is being paid in installments of $10,000,000 over ten years.Through June 30, 2013, HRW had received $30,000,000 towards the fulfillment of the pledge.... (HRW) and Anti-Slavery International (ASI).[nL8N15X4NN] These influential Islamic figures, respected and even feared by communities and politicians, punish their pupils if they fail to bring in some 2,000 CFA francs ($3) per day, activists said. Alongside a drive to take the talibe off the streets, the state is considering a law to regulate daaras - seeking to raise teaching standards and eliminate trafficking and forced begging. Yet activists are concerned that the clout of marabouts may hold back efforts to protect children in the Koranic schools as Senegal wrestles with its identity amid a rising tide of Islamist militancy in the region. Many people in the Moslem-majority but staunchly secular West African nation are asserting their cultural and religious identity over Western values in response to growing anti-Islam sentiment in Europe and elsewhere, said Sarah Mathewson of ASI. "This extends to marabouts feeling excluded from Senegal's education system, which operates in French," she said. "They must be integrated and supported if things are to improve." Posted by: Fred 2016-11-17 |
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