preview

Research Paper

Decent Essays
Open Document
“Bienvenue à la paix de la Téranga”. That was the first thing I was told when I first got off the plane in Senegal, a predominantly Islamic West African country I spent two years living in. During my time there I had the privilege to get in touch with my roots and see a different aspect of life. Not everything is peaches and cream life, I thought I understood that being from Detroit and seeing a lot of poverty and all but I guess I didn't grasp it for the night until I saw children on the street begging for food every day with no shoes, worn out clothes and infections of their heads. I learned that in Senegal people called these children were called talibes , Quranic students forced to do labor for their Serignes or marabouts.As I…show more content…
These punishments range from beating talibes with whips to chaining them by the ankles for days to poles.They don’t provide talibes with good living conditions, putting up to 15 talibes in a room.Most of these boys don’t wash their clothes for weeks.These children, mostly the boys who are the only ones permitted to leave the Darras to beg, are sick with diseases and have many infections.Most talibes that run away are usually brought back by other talibes or come back because they can’t fend for themselves. These Quranic teachers have developed a strong presence in the Senegalese government. Samantha Macfarlane in wrote an article on www.berkleycenter.georgetown.edu that “ Marabouts have large enough followings that their support of a political candidate may influence or determine the outcome of an election.” This causes mutual relationships between marabouts and politicians sometimes involving in corruption.Due to this fact, marabouts had little opposition to no opposition from the government until 2016. But what are people doing to stop this growing problem and help these children? Luaren Seibert wrote in www.hrw.org article that “In June 2016, the government demonstrated meaningful political will by introducing a new program to remove children from the streets”.But after a year the Human Rights Watch and the Platform for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights ( a coalition of Senegalese rights groups)
Get Access
Related
Get Access