In Burkina Faso, some Mali refugees want to grow up to be slaves

A Tuareg child pushes away a Bella girl (left) at a camp for Malian refugees in Goudebou, Burkina Faso. REUTERS/Misha Hussain

By Misha Hussain in GOUDEBOU |
Burkina Faso | 11 Apr 2014

Thousands of people from the Bella ethnic group in Burkina Faso are working without pay in Tuareg households, preparing meals and cleaning, and looking after livestock. Bellas have served Tuaregs for centuries in an arrangement that campaigners liken to slavery, but Tuareg leader says his group unfairly singled out

Ten-year-old Atahib goes to school in the Goudebou refugee camp in the savannah of Burkina Faso, not hoping to become a teacher or a doctor like his classmates. He wants to learn so he can better serve his Tuareg masters.

Each day, Atahib wakes up before the Muslim morning call to prayer to help his mother with her chores – unpaid work that people from their Bella ethnic group have been doing for the ligher-skinned Tuaregs for centuries in Mali, Niger and Mauritania.

Campaign groups call the arrangement slavery – though Tuaregs in the camp insisted the Bella were free to take their chances and leave.

At 7 a.m., Atahib walks along a dusty track to join the rest of the children in school.

“Reading and writing will help me to do chores like going to the market so that I don’t get ripped off,” he said in a barely audible voice, his eyes fixed on the ground.

His masters fled to Burkina Faso after a rebellion erupted in their home, northern Mali, two years ago. Tuareg separatists and Islamist rebels seized control of desert territory in 2012 until a French-led campaign seized it back.

That was followed by revenge attacks on anyone associated with the rebellion, forcing hundreds of thousands to flee, some crossing the border to neighbouring Burkina Faso. Tuaregs took with them their livestock and Bella workers.

Slavery was formally abolished in Mali after independence from France in 1960. But thousands of Bella still work without pay in Tuareg households – preparing meals and cleaning, and looking after livestock, say campaign groups.

They receive food and shelter but are regarded as their masters’ property and are often named after his favourite food or a day of the week, anti-slavery campaigners say.

For some Bella children, their new life may provide an opportunity for change: in Mali, children like Atahib would never have had an education. The school in the Goudebou camp is trying to redress this cultural inequality, providing Bella children with daily classes, just like their Tuareg peers.

“In school, the children realise even though there are differences, they share a lot in common. Some of the Tuareg children even see that those they consider subservient are just as bright,” said Oscar Nkulu, community officer for UNHCR.

Though some progress has been made, many Bella children see their future as workers in the households of Tuareg classmates.

“When I grow up, I want to be a servant,” said Aminata, doing everything to avoid eye contact – a contrast to buoyant Tuareg kids who want to be humanitarian workers or politicians.