Senegalese children forced to beg by renegade qur’anic teachers

Talibés of Dakar begging to fund Qur’anic schools, known as daaras, in Senegal. Photo: Misha Hussain

By Misha Hussain in DAKAR |
Senegal | 11 Dec 2012

The venerable tradition of Senegalese children studying with marabouts is being distorted by a wayward minority who illegally exploit their young charges to turn a profit

An estimated 50,000 children in Senegal are forced to beg on the streets and give the money they earn to religious teachers, despite a 2005 law forbidding this exploitation. A stone’s throw from Île de Gorée, a symbol of colonial slavery lying off the coast opposite Dakar, another form of bondage threatens children from impoverished families in Senegal and throughout west Africa.

Ablaye is a talibé, a young boy forced to beg. Beaten, starved and hundreds of miles from home, he is one of tens of thousands of children who have to bring in up to 1,000 west African francs ($2) a day for their religious teachers, known as marabouts.

“We have to bring back around 450cfa every day, 500cfa on Fridays. If we don’t get enough money, the marabout asks the older talibés to hold our hands and feet together while he beats us,” says Ablaye, from Kolda, a small town in the poor Casamance area of southern Senegal.