Talibés. Slave Children in West Africa.
Modou S. - 12 years old "talibé", Saint Louis.
Every day I have to bring money, rice and sugar. I want this to finish, but I cannot leave.
I have nowhere to go. When I can't bring all these things, the marabout hits me.
Senegal, called the entrance gate to Western Africa, and tourist destination
for more than one million people every year, suffers a serious problem
difficult to solve. According to Human Rights Watch, more than fifty thousand
children live in slavery-like conditions.
They are the "talibé" children.
It's a very difficult, tricky situation. Very difficult in the extent that we see
thousands and thousands of children in the streets, looking for food and money
and we see them living in very difficult conditions
that aren't acceptable to our society.
"Talibé" is a word of Arabic origin meaning learner, pupil and student.
It is also the word that defines the children who live on the streets, forced to beg up
to ten hours a day to meet the amount of food and money required by their "marabouts",
religion teachers, who actually act as masters of the children.
Nowadays the "talibés' situation is extremely worrying.
Last year there was a fire in the old town, where some "talibés" died.
This aroused public opinion here in Senegal. It was a very hard moment
that everybody suffered. It's a situation that demands a solution, because at present
there are "talibés" everywhere in Dakar and in all the big cities. So it's a situation
that requires the attention of the authorities, the population and also the "marabouts".
But what is the origin of this problem? How has this situation been reached?
The traditional model of religious education, which has been maintained for centuries,
has been overwhelmed by the increase of population and the enormous growth of the cities.
Senegal has quintupled its population, from three to fifteen
million people in only fifty years.
We realize that many "talibés" move to the great urban centres – Dakar, Thiès and Kaolack-
because they are richer cities. We also see that there are often movements
of children who go from who go from the south to the centre of the country,
and from bordering countries too, mainly from the south.
The phenomenon of the slave children is a deformation of the traditional model,
which has worked and still works correctly in most rural areas of the country.
According to the traditional model of learning of "talibés", children learn
the Islamic religion after school, usually with the village imam,
and after they have learnt religion, they help him in his orchard
with the things he needs to do.
Later, during the decolonization process, the great urban centres were created,
and what happened was that many people realized that it was much more productive
to send the children to beg in the cities than teach them the traditional religion.
We understand this is an incorrect practice, and we consider
these people false "marabouts".
In my case, I call false "marabouts" those who mistreat children.
And mistreat children those who, if a father trusts you and brings you his children
so that you teach them the Koran and the Islamic religion, and you don't do it.
Things should be that way.
The biannual report elaborated by the Human Rights Observatory states that
the "talibé" children that remain subject to these conditions, and do not feel
any of the ten children's basic rights respected, are in a permanent situation
of exploitation and slavery.
Thus, whenever people speak about false "marabouts", they refer to people
who have not the knowledge or the right orientation to teach the Koran correctly and
and have turned the children, who are supposed to be given education, into slave children.
Nevertheless, although it affects between 50,000 and 100,000 children,
it is a minority problem in Senegal. Most of the training practices of the
true "marabouts" are correct and they respect most of the children's rights.
Moussa A. - 9 years old "talibé", Mbour.
We are 57 and we all sleep in two rooms. Now it's very cold and we sleep on little rugs, without
any blankets. When it starts getting cold, we stick together one another in order
to sleep and keep warm, but it's really hard.
Most "talibé" children stay in the same "daaras", the Koranic schools
where the "marabouts" should guarantee their education.
Those buildings, most of them unfinished, have serious shortcomings,
like lack of running water or decent sanitation facilities, as well as structural defects.
All this, together with the overcrowding of these sites, put the "talibé" children
at all kind of risks, which prevent their physical and mental development.
The children haven't even got a mattress; they sleep directly on the floor. They can't keep warm,
they can't wash themselves, they don't eat properly and they sleep on the floor.
That's usual.
All gather together. There are many "talibés" who meet in a small room (5, 10, 15 "talibés")
when the weather is bad, the situation is worse.
The "talibés" live in the "daaras" in very bad conditions
as a consequence of the false "marabouts".
Another problem for the "talibé" children are clothing and footwear.
The "marabouts" justify that the children must wear rags in order to learn to be humble.
So if children get or buy new clothes for themselves, the marabout usually takes them.
These children don't wash themselves, they haven't got any shoes, they go
badly dressed in cold or hot weather; they usually have only one change of
underwear for the whole year. So they are exposed to all type of illnesses.
Imagine a boy playing, getting dirty, doing everything, especially in Senegal,
which is very dusty; then, a boy who has only a shirt is a disaster.
here are lucky boys who have a shirt, trousers and shoes ...
The ones who haven't that, and with such hot weather
in Senegal, have a very hard time.
In the life of a "talibé" there are things you can never forget, like the subject of clothes,
lice and insects that used to bite us all the time and didn't let us live.
As we never changed clothes, a friend and I used to go to a place in the dessert
and there we made a hole in the sand. Then we got undressed and put our clothes inside;
we covered them and waited for the heat to kill all lice and insects. I remember this with pain.
Mamadou S. - 8 years old "ex-talibé", Thiès.
It isn't easy to find food. There have been days I didn't eat anything at all.
Lamine C. 12 years old "ex-talibé", Dakar.
Some days I was so hungry that I looked for food in the rubbish.
The right of children to food is violated systematically. As Human Rights Watch states,
most "talibés" in urban centres, forced to beg for food, suffer malnutrition.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child and the African Charter on the Rights
and Welfare of the Child points out the rights to food and physical development:
rights that the State as well as parents and "marabouts" must guarantee.
Malnutrition happens when a child has nothing to eat and his "marabout" doesn't provide
him with any food, and the little he collects is for the "marabout's" benefit.
In the Koranic schools that come here for health care
I would say that from 40 to 50 per cent of the children suffer malnutrition.
A very important part of the time the children spend begging
food for themselves, for their daily meals, and food for their "marabout".
So they must take to their house or to the house of their "marabout",
who is exploiting them, some rice or a small amount of money or food,
and it's their own mates who share what they have managed to find,
to avoid being subject to physical or psychological punishments in most cases.
Birame M. - 13 years old "Talibé", Dakar.
When I was sick, I couldn't stop begging. The marabout looked at me and I said:
"No, you're not sick." If I refused to go out and beg, he beated me severely.
The continuous violation of the rights to a decent life and proper
nourishment implies inevitably serious shortcomings in hygiene and health.
As regards diseases, children suffer everything:
For example, many "talibés" die of malaria.
The medical situation is awful. They live in a very promiscuous environment where they catch
all the diseases. And if they are sick, what should be done is look after them
and call the doctor, who is usually expensive. Therefore in these
"talibé" houses sanitary questions aren't often taken into account.
There are children that worms get into their skin...
here are others who have like pus balls in their body
burning them from the inside.
The most common diseases are mainly gastroenteritis, anaemia, malnutrition,
sometimes scabies – although lately more infrequent - and intestinal parasitism.
Currently, as far as I have seen here, about a 30% of the population suffer malaria.
When the rainy season arrives, things get much worse
because there are more mosquitoes, more diseases.
And then, of course, children have malaria, and when it rains they suffer a lot,
they are on the street begging and it rains on them.
Imagine a boy who is wet all day and sleeps with the same wet shirt on,
without being able to have a bath or anything,
or at least change the wet shirt; they stay like this, sleeping,
and the false "marabout" doesn't care, doesn't care whether the boy
is wet or whether has rained.
Very poor conditions, without mosquito nets
and this makes them become seriously affected by diseases and situations
that with a good diet and good hygiene
wouldn't reach this point of precariousness.
Chérif B. - 11 years old "talibé", Saint Louis.
If I don't bring the established quota, the "marabout" hits me with an electric wire
or a club. He takes us to a room and makes the other "talibés" come and watch.
Physical violence is another serious problem that the "talibé" children suffer.
Punishment is usually used by "marabouts" and their assistants, mostly older "talibés".
When the child leaves the "marabout's" house, he begs on the streets for alms; in case he fails
to get the required, when he returns home he is punished.
The "marabouts" punish the children hard, they beat them hard …
A child is a child, of course, and he has the right to play,
he is easily distracted, he breaks things, does something he shouldn't do;
but they are children, they are innocent,
and the "marabouts" don't think so and beat them hard.
There are some threads in Senegal called "liv".
they beat them with this or with a stick.
The object the "marabouts" use to punish "talibés" is called "kir"; it is the one used for
beating horses. At the time I was a "talibé", the "marabout" had a stick with a
thread tied round it, like a whip. He used to hit us with it and, wherever it touched, it cut us.
I remember clearly when he used to hit us with the "kir".
Abdou P. - 12 years old "talibé", Thiés.
When I first arrived, the marabout told me I would learn the Koran and many more things.
After 3 years I haven't learnt anything, and I don't know the meaning of the words that I learnt.
"Marabouts" are the responsible for "talibés'" religious education.
That's the reason why parents have entrusted them with the care of their children.
In the "daara" the children learn about the Islam and learn to recite the Koran by heart.
However, in most cases, the children spend much more time in the street,
begging for the "marabout", than studying at school.
I would say that the children have very little time to study
the Islamic religion, to study the Koran, little time to learn something...
The "marabout" understands his "daara" like a business, not like a place to educate
the children, since parents take their children there in order to give them education.
Parents don't pay anything to the "marabout", who houses them as a business owner
and wants to earn money. As he will earn a lot, he wants to host a lot of children.
If there are 25 children together, everyone with his koranic book
and do like this, I would say they don't understand anything ...
The 25 children shout and everyone is in a different phrase,
impossible that something gets into their heads
My system begins at four o'clock in the morning.
The children learn the alphabet and revise the previous day homework; they must read it.
Then they go out on the street to look for food, and when they come back, they start new homework.
Once done, they learn how to write to have neat handwriting and after that they go out again for food.
They go on revising the homework and read what they have done well. After reading,
at about five o'clock in the evening, they will go to pray. After praying, they will sit down again to study.
If twenty or thirty children have been brought to you, if you have to maintain them,
and their parents have no means and give you nothing,
you must do something so that they can eat first and then study.
A problem originated from studying only the Koran is almost
the impossibility to include the talibés in the education system of the country,
in French, the official language of Senegal. Thus, the inability to know and speak
this language prevents them from studying and having access to professional training.
The "talibés" stay outside the system, which compromises their future seriously.
Such amount of adverse conditions makes practically impossible
their access to the education system of the country, which is in French;
so, the "talibé" children feel themselves clearly unable to achieve a decent life,
to have a minimally qualified job, to be able to start a family
and to have access to a minimally decent, respectable, full life.
But in some cases, the "marabout" does allow some "talibés" to continue their studies.
However, the children have not any possibility to decide by themselves.
When they finish, I'll let this boy study, but not the other one, because he hasn't
finished his studies properly. The one in the black shirt,
I would let him go to university, but not the other one.
I wouldn't let him learn French either. When he finishes his studies, I will let him.
The problems of the "talibé" children are difficult to solve.
Like a vicius circle, the oldest talibés become the "marabout's" assistants, and apply,
even more cruelly, all the injustices they have endured to the younger ones.
Many former "talibés", once adults and being unable to find any future in the country,
find their own group of pupils and become "marabouts". Perpetuation is the problem.
There are children who think, why can't I become a false "marabout"
like my false "marabout" I stayed with?
Because they see that this "marabout" dresses well, eats well, has a pretty wife
that looks after him, his children are ok, and they say to themselves:
well, I don't have a future, I haven't got studies or anything then I'm going to open a "daara".
And he puts on pretty clothes and opens a "daara".
Then parents, who are fool, take their children to the "daara",
and what happened to them, will happen again to the children
who are taken to the "daara", because that's what they have learnt
from the false "marabout".
A recurrent question when talking about "talibés" is how parents can give
their own children to these false "marabouts" and ignore the conditions they will undergo.
And one reason is, apart from being the traditional model, the exponential growth
of the population and the host cities and, above all, the poverty that
beats great sectors of the country.
In a country where birth control is non-existent, many families feel
unable to care about their children.
Who is to blame for the children begging on the streets?
Is it the "marabout" or is it the family?
I think in 95% of cases, it's the parents' fault.
They have to go and see the child, if he studies, if he is in good health,
if he is well educated or not.
But many of them never come back to see about his situation.
Indeed, there is a necessity in the rural world.
We could say that when one is the father of a family
with lots of children, you can't look after all of them
and you can't give the necessary minimums to the family;
then, sometimes, they can't control the conditions of the children.
The lack of resources, the lack of money, often forces to do things
that one wouldn't do.
I think it is due to poverty, because if people were well off,
they wouldn't allow their children to leave home to learn the Koran
in these conditions. If they had resources,
why should they give them a social environment and a life like that?
Constant roaming is a common feature of the "daaras" in worse conditions.
The phenomenon is so serious that parents get to lose track of their children.
In these cases children become practically the "marabout's" property.
When summer arrives, we ask for a house or a place to live and where the "talibés" can study.
When winter comes, I'll take them to my family's fields so that they will work.
Right now half of the children aren't here. They are working in my village.
False "marabouts" move from town to town,
and if you take your 5 year old son, you stay five, six months,
even a year without seeing him, without talking to him, not knowing where he is,
you are losing your son and your son loses you.
The "marabout" moves from village to village and from city to city searching for a place
where he may stay at ease and get profit from charity and obtain resources and money,
from parents as well as the benefactors who give alms to the children.
Parents lose track of the children; yes, they lose their children,
who don't know where they are. And if they don't lose them completely,
they always hope they will come back, they hope they will see them again,
but they don't know where they are. This has happened to me:
I haven't seen my parents for seven years.
They don't know in which situation I am.
Seven years.
The child will forget about his family.
The child will forget where he comes from. The child will forget everything.
hen mothers regret these omissions and they go looking for their children;
if they are lucky, they find them, but they have a lot of trouble.
This evil system could not be maintained without the high degree of solidarity
of the Senegalese people. And the false marabouts take advantage of it.
We can say that Senegal is a country whose people are very sympathetic;
they practise charity a lot and help people who are poorer, more helpless;
it's a practice from their own culture that's in their blood.
If society doesn't care about the "talibé" children, they will starve to death:
They don't eat, don't drink, and can't get dressed.
And the worst of all; the "marabout" punish them and beat them
if they haven't brought anything.
We think that this makes it difficult to eradicate slave children,
because in the end, when they move and go begging in the houses,
their "marabouts" know that they will bring them food,
they will bring something for them to take away.
This is common practice and the "marabout" gets used to it.
The children go out onto the streets, and the society, people give them
money, food and everything. Then the false "marabout" relaxes,
exploits and will keep exploiting the children. And every day, when he gets up,
he says to himself: I haven't got a job, haven't got money, I become a "marabout".
I open a "daara" and they bring me 5, 10 or 15 children, and I live well with my wife.
The subject is complex to manage and solve, because it's deeply rooted.
It's a dichotomy: On one hand charity, which is a quality of the Senegalese society,
impacts directly on a phenomenon that has a clear effect on a relevant
part of their youth and on the future of the country.
The non-governmental organizations are not unaware of the problem.
Founded in 2008 Houses for Talibés Foundation works on
the spot to achieve a decent life for the "talibé" children.
In 2012 they opened a shelter school-home in Kaolack, which hosts 150 pupils
approximately, most of them "ex-talibé" children.
The main purpose of the Houses for Talibes Foundation is to give access
to the young people of the country in their rights as holders to education,
and at the same time, work with the Senegalese Government,
who is the holder of the responsibilities, with efficient models of cooperation
to solve this kind of problems.
Another aim of the Foundation is focused on raising public
awareness in the problems of these children,
in our country as well as in the destination country, Senegal,
concerning the access of young people to education.
The aim of our education model is to ensure that the children
may accede to most subjects of the school syllabus of the country.
We achieve this by including qualified teachers who come from the
Education Department itself and are specialized in different subjects.
Here the children learn Arabic and French as languages.
In French they learn communication language, mathematics,
science, geography and history. They study all this in French.
And, at the same time, they maintain their traditional practice
of learning the Koran, religion, like the traditional "daaras".
Houses for Talibés Foundation is not the first NGO working in the problem
of the "talibé" children. With some exceptions, several organizations have failed
collaborating in the eradication of the problem.
The Foundation, since the very beginning, has tried to work from a Senegalese
point of view rather than a western one to avoid making the same mistakes.
From the respect to the local culture they created the post of the rector, a responsible
or the Foundation in the same country endowed with a moral authority
to work on the "talibé" question.
Our project is built as a home for the children,
with cooks and staff in charge of cleaning and clothing.
Now is no longer as before: after learning the Koran, the children have
English, French and Arabic lessons.
The school of the Foundation in Kaolack is organized in three educational stages.
There are the kindergarten children, who are grouped in three sections:
small, medium and big.
And in all the three sections there are two male or female teachers.
One teacher in charge of the lessons related to the French language, and the other
in charge of the subjects related to the Arabic language and religious education.
Finally, last year we bought a house opposite our school,
in which we have set up what could be called a kindergarten -"maternelle" in French-
where boys and girls carry out activities and get prepared to go to school.
They aren't "talibé" boys or girls, of course; they are boys and girls
from the neighbourhood, very crowded and with few resources;
sometimes their parents contribute in a symbolic way, and sometimes
they don't, in the maintenance expenses and in the sustainability model.
As a point of view of innovation and parity
the Foundation has incorporated girls from the neighbourhood into the school,
about fifteen, who follow the same academic model as the boys and share classes.
In this case parents pay fees to the school, contributing to the self-sustainability
model of the shelter home. This model combines this kind of income with the income coming
from some farming set up by the Foundation and managed by the same school.
Some parts of the project are already accomplished, like the purchase for the
of cows and sheep. At present we are waiting for the cows to reproduce.
The cows allow us to have milk and meat for the school; and, at the same time,
we can sell them, if necessary.
This has two really defined focuses; first, ensure that children can have
access to proteins in their diet, and, second, that they may interchange meat
for rice and millet, which is the base of carbohydrates,
or for fruit or vegetables, which are vitamins.
With the surpluses we pay for a part of the wages and maintenance
expenses of the shelter house we have in Kaolak.
With the rest of the surpluses we obtain the rotation of the farm
so that it will keep in a state of continuous, balanced production
Another aspect the Foundation wants to foster is the workers' involvement in the project.
Through voluntary workers who visit our school,
we incorporate activities with the aim to help the children develop;
above all receive cognitive stimuli that usually don't receive,
and in this way to be able to progress in the training,
and thus obtain high, positive marks in most subjects studied.
Another function of the shelter home in Kaolack is to provide medical supervision to the
children and teach them as regards hygiene. Three times a week a woman doctor visits
the school and ensures that the pupils are in good physical condition.
After three years working, it can be affirmed that the school is in process of consolidation.
Work goes well. The help of our partners, who don't spare efforts,
makes the school progress at a steady pace.
As I've said, it is a problem that needs many resources and a great
concern; It is a phenomenon we could call recurrent. There will always be "talibés",
but we must find solutions. I think that if people do nothing, the situation won't change.
I refer to government, NGOs and also to "marabouts".
A great awareness-raising is needed around "marabouts"; and also a potential help,
because there are some good "marabouts".
Everywhere there are good people and not so good people. But it is necessary that it becomes
a national problem and that everybody feels concerned about the "talibé" children's issue.
And I also want to say that the Government is beginning to move.
Not long ago it has begun to apply laws which were currently in force, but were not applied,
and there are some areas where work is being done to ban
completely child begging on the streets.
These are steps that encourage us, but it is also my opinion
that it isn't an easy job; we are talking in the long term.
The testimonies of the "talibé" children are real and they come from
the report: "Off the backs of the children. Forced begging and other abuses against
talibés in Senegal", from Human Rights Watch.
This documentary has been possible by the generous and altruistic
participation of most of professionals and co-workers.
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