Mauritania: the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child finds boys in Qur'anic schools forced to beg in the street for their teachers' economic gain, and calls for talibé children to be removed from the marabouts' control

Proceedings

1. 2018-10-01 · concluding observations adopted

   United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (treaty body established under the Convention on the Rights of the Child). In its concluding observations on the combined third to fifth periodic reports of Mauritania the Committee recorded that it 'notes with concern that more than half of all domestic workers in the State party are children, with the majority of them being girls, that such children are not only separated from their families but are also exposed to economic exploitation, violence, discrimination and abuse, including sexual abuse, and that boys in Qur'anic schools are forced to beg on the street for the economic gain of their teachers (marabouts)'. Among its recommendations it urged the State party to 'take all measures necessary to remove talibé children from the control of marabouts who exploit and mistreat them, and fully implement legislation prohibiting the exploitation of children for begging, including by promptly investigating, prosecuting and punishing perpetrators accordingly'. It also urged protective measures for girls subjected to the practice of confiage and for children sent abroad for domestic work. In the same document the Committee, while welcoming the 2015 criminalisation of slavery as a crime against humanity, recorded that it 'remains concerned over reports of the existence of caste-based slavery, which has a particular impact on girls in domestic service'.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• religious instruction as the basis on which boys are placed in a teacher's household
• forced street begging for the teacher's economic gain
• the teacher's control over children separated from their families