Annie Vulpas is a MPH intern from The University of Illinois - Chicago with IOFA. She reflects on her experience studying abroad as an undergraduate student in Senegal and bearing witness to a human rights violation.
It
wasn’t until recently that I realized I had been a witness of child trafficking
everyday for nearly a year. To the group
of American women studying abroad at the Université Gaston Berger in Saint
Louis, Senegal, the talibés were
mainly a nuisance and many techniques were employed to avoid the filthy, poorly
dressed little boys begging for money.
Sometimes we changed directions or crossed the street while walking when
we saw a talibé coming; other times,
we rudely ignored them or told them “bayyi
ma!” (leave me alone!).
The word
talibé is from the Arabic word for
student – talib. The talibés in Senegal are young boys
enrolled in Qur’anic schools, called daara
in Wolof, where they live, often hundreds of miles from home. In many of the daaras, boys are sent out early in the morning and forced to beg
all day long for money, about $1-2 (500-1,000 fCFA), rice and sugar each
day. Failing to return with the required
amount of goods or cash, the talibés
will not be fed and are often brutally beaten.
The Qur’anic teachers, or Marabouts,
are responsible for the treatment of these children and support their schools,
which are often unsanitary and built out of poor building materials such as
plastic and corrugated tin.
As a
young woman in my early 20’s, I acknowledged that something was wrong with the talibé situation in Senegal but acceptance
of talibé begging by the general population
clouded my understanding of the issue. Many
people saw the talibé experience as a
rite of passage and since they begged as children, it only made sense that
their children would also enroll in a daara
under the tutelage of a Marabout. Now, interning with IOFA and learning of the
various ways that children are trafficked, I can see a bigger picture and,
sadly, understand the crime that I bore witness to in Senegal.
According
to the 2013 Trafficking in Persons Report, Senegal – categorized as a Tier 2
country – is a “source, transit, and destination country for children and women
who are subjected to forced labor, forced begging, and sex trafficking.” Other forms of trafficking in Senegal include
prostitution, domestic servitude and forced labor. The government supports various shelters and
rehabilitation programs in Senegal that provide shelter, food, medical and
psychological care to victims of trafficking but statistics related to
trafficking prosecutions and convictions are not maintained or published. It is believed that approximately 50,000 boys
between the ages of 3 and 19 are forced to beg for their daaras.
Reflecting
on my interaction with the talibés
during that year, I feel a sense of guilt.
Although I was kind – or hoped I was kind to them – I feel guilt for
being aware of the issue and instead of addressing my beliefs, letting others
dictate my understanding of the situation.
The widespread moral disengagement of the Senegalese, or self-conviction
that ethical standards do not apply to certain situations such as the forced
begging of talibés, is fueling the
abuse of these children. Efforts have
been made by various organizations in recent years to end the forced begging of
talibés as awareness of the issue is
growing, but such an obvious violation of human rights must be ended. The boys of Senegal deserve to spend their
days in classrooms learning rather than out in the streets begging and being
rudely told to “go away” by unknowing and apathetic passersby.
For more
information on this topic, please refer to the following sources:
