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Human Rights Watch scolds Senegal over Talibes
Thursday, 15 April 2010 23:20
By Kemo ChamHuman Rights Watch has published a damning report detailing dehumanizing condition of young children in the hands of Qur’anic scholars who are supposed to be their teachers.
‘‘Tens of thousands of children at residential Quranic schools in Senegal are subjected to slavery-like conditions and severely abused,’’ the
global rights body said in its report, published Thursday. It urged the Senegalese government to hold teachers and religious school owners who ignore the country’s legislation on the issue accountable. The situation of these children, locally known as ‘Talibes’, is characterized by long distance barefoot trekking, wearing tattered clothes, in search of food. They spend the better part of their day scrambling for mainly left over foodstuffs. In the streets of Dakar, these young people are conspicuously seen around slowly moving vehicles, and around car parks, demanding for coins and any other valuable they can lay their hands on. This is widely believed to be a pre-condition laid down by their teachers, failure to meet which demand could lead to beating and denial of food.
The 114-page report, titled "‘Off the Backs of the Children': Forced Begging and Other Abuses against Talibés in Senegal," says there are at least 50,000 children just in urban residential daaras (Qur’anic religious schools) who are living ‘‘in conditions akin to slavery."
Senegal has a legislation that seeks to counter the problem, which is highly shunned by the greater population. But very few people will want to openly champion the fight against it given the influence the religious leaders wield in this mainly Muslim country. The politicians ignore it for the interest of their political ambition.
But Human Rights Watch thinks the country has an obligation to its international commitment. "Senegal should not stand by while tens of thousands of talibé children are subjected every day to beatings, gross neglect, and, in fact, conditions akin to slavery," said Georgette Gagnon, Africa director of the body. "The government should take the occasion of National Talibé Day, April 20, to commit to regulate all Quranic schools and hold abusive marabouts accountable."
The need to study the Qur’an forms a basis for the reason why Senegalese parents send their children to these Daraas. But also many families see the qur’anic schools as opportunity to dump off their financial burden. This explains why the phenomenon has last this long, as parents are well aware of what their children go through in these dungeon-like schools.
‘‘Parents send their children to residential daaras largely out of a desire that they receive a religious education; many are also influenced by lack of financial means to support them at home,’’ the Human Rights Watch report said. ‘‘Most parents fail to provide any financial or emotional support when sending the child to a marabout. While some lack knowledge about the abuse - in part due to deliberate obfuscation by the marabout - others willingly send or return their children to a situation they know to be abusive.’’
The report went on to say that the government's failure is a breach of its responsibilities under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, in addition to under conventions on trafficking, slavery-like conditions, and the worst forms of child labor.
Human Rights Watch also called on the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to denounce the practice of forced begging as contrary to human rights obligations under the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, and asked the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery to undertake an investigation into the situation of the talibés.
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Comments
The marabouts in senegal knew very well that their very own children who learn the same quranic in their daraas are not subjected to the same treatment. The Marabouts should be charge in law. It is the duty of the state to protect these innocent children. 95% of all these children are left to wonder for food and money for their teacher rather than them given knowledge they seek to recieve. The parents should know that theu party to the crime against their own children in these daraas.
Please lets all stop the menace in our society so that our children can live dignify lives from the start.
Ebrima
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