1. Background

2. Government position

3. Causes of persistence

4. Antislavery organizations
    Modern slavery 

5. See also

6. References

7. External links

In 1905, an end of slavery in Mauritania was declared by the colonial French administration but the vastness of Mauritania mostly gave the law very few successes.^[2] In 1981, Mauritania became the last country in the world to abolish slavery,^[3] when a presidential decree abolished the practice. However, no criminal laws were passed to enforce the ban.^[3][4][5] In 2007, "under international pressure", the government passed a law allowing slaveholders to be prosecuted.^[3] Despite this, the number of slaves in the country has been estimated by Global Slavery Index to be 43,000 (or 1.058% of the population) in 2015^[6] and by the organization SOS Slavery to be up to 600,000 (or 17% of the population).^[7] Sociologist Kevin Bales and Global Slavery Index estimate that Mauritania has the highest proportion of people in slavery of any country in the world.^[8][9] While other countries in the region have people in "slavelike conditions", the situation in Mauritania is "unusually severe", according to African history professor Bruce Hall.^[3]

The position of the government of Mauritania is that slavery is "totally finished ... all people are free",^[13] and that talk of it "suggests manipulation by the West, an act of enmity toward Islam, or influence from the worldwide Jewish conspiracy."^[3] However, Amnesty International estimates that 43,000 people still live in slavery in Mauritania.

"The country has jailed more anti-slavery activists than slave owners, rights groups say." [https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-43600274]

Background

A November 2009 United Nations mission, headed by UN Special Rapporteur Gulnara Shahinian, evaluated slavery practices in the country.^[10] In an August 2010 report to the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) it concluded that "despite laws, programmes and difference of opinion with regard to the existence of slavery in Mauritania, ... de facto slavery continues to exist in Mauritania".^[11]

Slave status has been passed down through the generations.^[17] The descendants of black Africans captured during historical slave raids now live in Mauritania as "black Moors" or haratin, some of them still serve as slaves to the lighter-skinned "white" or beydan ("Whites")^[1] (Berbers or mixed Berber-Arabs, descendants of slave-owners known collectively as al-beydan).^[12] According to Global Slavery Index, slavery of adults and children in Mauritania "primarily takes the form of chattel slavery" (i.e. the slaves and their descendants "are the full property of their masters").^[9] Slaves "may be bought and sold, rented out and given away as gifts".^[9] Slavery in Mauritania is "prevalent in both rural and urban areas", but women are reportedly "disproportionately affected" by slavery. Women slaves "usually work within the domestic sphere", caring for children and doing domestic chores, but "may also herd animals and farm". Women slaves "are subject to sexual assault by their masters".^[9] Because slave status is matrilineal, slaves typically serve the same families that their mothers and grandmothers did. They usually sleep and eat in the same quarters as the animals of their owning families.^[3] Slaves are "not restrained by chains" but by "economic" and "psychological" factors. They are denied education in secular fields that provide job skills, and taught that "questioning slavery is tantamount to questioning Islam".^[3] There is also a "grey area"^[13] or "a continuum" between slavery and freedom in Mauritania^[3]—referred to politely as the "vestiges of slavery"—where sharecroppers and workers are exploited by Beydane landowners and bosses.^[3] According to Ahmed Vall Ould Dine, of Mauritanian Human Rights Watch, "Slaves tend to develop very close relations with their masters; the freed ones, who are poor and have inherited nothing from their parents, chose to remain under the auspices of their ex-masters as they provide them with basic necessities of life."^[1]

Two academics, Ahmed Meiloud and Mohamed El Mokhtar Sidi Haiba, have criticized statements on slavery in Mauritania by anti-slavery organizations and writers for alleged exaggeration, lack of statistical sources, factual errors.^[14]

Government position

The government of Mauritania (which is dominated by Beydanes)^[3] denies that slavery exists in the country. According to Abdel Nasser Ould Ethmane, a political adviser to the African Union and a cofounder of the abolitionist group SOS Slaves, the Mauritanian government's "line" on slavery is: "Slavery no longer exists, and talk of it suggests manipulation by the West, an act of enmity toward Islam, or influence from the worldwide Jewish conspiracy."^[3]

Responding to accusations of human rights abuse, in 2012 the Mauritanian Minister of rural development, Brahim Ould M'Bareck Ould Med El Moctar, stated:

I must tell you that in Mauritania, freedom is total: freedom of thought, equality—of all men and women of Mauritania... in all cases, especially with this government, this is in the past. There are probably former relationships—slavery relationships and familial relationships from old days and of the older generations, maybe, or descendants who wish to continue to be in relationships with descendants of their old masters, for familial reasons, or out of affinity, and maybe also for economic interests. But (slavery) is something that is totally finished. All people are free in Mauritania and this phenomenon no longer exists. And I believe that I can tell you that no one profits from this commerce.^[15]

In March 2013, the President established an agency to "combat slavery", known as the "National Agency to Fight against the Vestiges of Slavery, Integration, and Fight against Poverty".^[9][16] The director, Hamdi Ould Mahjoub, a Beydane, told The New Yorker author Alexis Okeowo, "Slavery as an institution, as something accepted by society, does not exist" in Mauritania, and that his agency was working on a program to help farmers and others to build clinics and improve access to water.^[3]

Causes of persistence

Among the reasons given for the difficulty of ending slavery in Mauritania are:

• Many of the slaves are isolated by illiteracy, poverty, and geography, and do not know that life outside servitude is possible.^[3]
• The difficulty of enforcing any laws in the country's vast desert.^[17]
• Poverty that limits opportunities for slaves to support themselves if freed.^[17]
• Dependence on masters who provide food and clothing to slaves.^[18]
• Difficulty of "running away" and leaving families in large parts of the country that are desert.^[18]
• Belief that slavery is part of the natural order of this society.^[17]
• Belief in a "misguided interpretation of Islam", in which slaves are "told that their paradise is bound to their master and that if they do what the master tells them, they will go to heaven".^[18]
• Mauritanian laws, which place the burden of proof on the slave, require that a victim file a complaint before an investigation is launched, and that human rights organisations may not file a case on behalf of a victim, despite the fact that most slaves are illiterate.^[9]

Antislavery organizations

Mauritanian antislavery organizations include:

• Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA-Mauritania), is led by Biram Dah Abeid, a former slave
• Al'Hor الحر (translated as "the free")
• In'itaq إنعتاق (translated as "emancipation")
• SOS Esclaves (meaning "SOS Slaves" in French) aids slaves to escape from their masters, and petitions the government and the clergy to address the problem of slavery, but stops short of aggressively confronting authorities like IRA-Mauritania. SOS was co-founded by {{ill|Boubacar Messaoud|fr|Boubacar Ould Messaoud}}, a former slave who went on to study engineering and architecture in Mali and Moscow. As of 2014, he was in his late sixties and so, according to Messaoud, may represent an older generation. In 2011, Messaoud and Biram Dah Abeid held a hunger strike in a Nouakchott police station until the police put a slave owner in jail.

Modern slavery

Still today, masters lend their slaves' labor to other individuals, female slaves are sexually exploited and children are made to work and rarely receive an education.

Slavery particularly affects women and children, who are the most vulnerable among the vulnerable. Women of child-bearing age have a harder time emancipating because they are producers of slave labor and perceived as extremely valuable.|From U.S. Dept. of State report on Slavery in Mauritania, 2009^[19]}}

Slavery persists in Mauritania.^[20] In 1905, the French colonial administration declared an end of slavery in Mauritania, with very little success.^[21] Although nominally abolished in 1981, it was not illegal to own slaves until 2007. According to the US State Department 2010 Human Rights Report,^[22] abuses in Mauritania include:

...mistreatment of detainees and prisoners; security force impunity; lengthy pretrial detention; harsh prison conditions; arbitrary arrests; limits on freedom of the press and assembly; corruption; discrimination against women; female genital mutilation (FGM); child marriage; political marginalization of southern-based ethnic groups; racial and ethnic discrimination; slavery and slavery-related practices; and child labor.

The report continues: "Government efforts were not sufficient to enforce the antislavery law. No cases have been successfully prosecuted under the antislavery law despite the fact that 'de facto' slavery exists in Mauritania."

The Global Slavery Index estimates that up to 140,000 people are still enslaved in Mauritania.^[23]

Only one person, Oumoulmoumnine Mint Bakar Vall, has been prosecuted for owning slaves and she was sentenced to six months in jail in January 2011.^[24] In 2012, it was estimated that 10–20% of the population of Mauritania (between 340,000 and 680,000 people) live in slavery.^[25]

According to the Global Slavery Index 2014 compiled by Walk Free Foundation, there are an estimated 155,600 enslaved people in Mauritania, ranking it 31st of 167 countries by absolute number of slaves, and 1st by prevalence, with 4% of the population. The Government ranks 121 of 167 on its response to combating all forms of modern slavery.^[26]

According to the Mauritanian government, it has taken action to end all forms of slavery. In 2015, the government expanded the definition of slavery to include child labor, although they have difficulty enforcing anti-slavery laws. The government is underfunded and ill-equipped to deal with slavery.^[27]

The government of Mauritania denies that slavery continues in the country. In a 2012 interview, the Mauritanian Minister of rural development, Brahim Ould M'Bareck Ould Med El Moctar, responded to accusations of human rights abuse by stating:

I must tell you that in Mauritania, freedom is total: freedom of thought, equality—of all men and women of Mauritania... in all cases, especially with this government, this is in the past. There are probably former relationships—slavery relationships and familial relationships from old days and of the older generations, maybe, or descendants who wish to continue to be in relationships with descendants of their old masters, for familial reasons, or out of affinity, and maybe also for economic interests. But (slavery) is something that is totally finished. All people are free in Mauritania and this phenomenon no longer exists. And I believe that I can tell you that no one profits from this commerce.^[28]

Obstacles to ending slavery in Mauritania include:

• The difficulty of enforcing any laws in the country's vast desert^[17]
• Poverty that limits opportunities for slaves to support themselves if freed^[17]
• Belief that slavery is part of the natural order of this society.^[17]

In November 2016, an appeals court in Mauritania overturned the jail convictions of three anti-slavery activists and reduced the sentences of seven others to time served leaving three in custody, for their alleged role in a riot in June, Amnesty International said.^[29] Another court had originally sentenced the 13 human rights activists and members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) to 15 years in prison.

Child labor also remains prevalent throughout Mauritania. The Mauritanian government conducted raid in Nouakchott in November 2017 and rescued forty-two child slaves who were held by Koranic instructors.^[30] According to the United States Department of Labor, the violation of child slavery laws is rarely punished. The Special Brigade for Minors investigated 406 case of child exploitation; however, it is unclear if the Mauritanian legal system further investigated or punished anyone involved in those particular cases.^[31] Child slavery continues to be an issue in Mauritania because the status is passed down maternally, from mother to child.

As a result of Mauritania failing to curb slavery, in January 2018, the African Union officially reprimanded the Mauritanian government. The ruling was based on a case involving two brothers, Said Salem and Yarg Ould Salem who were slaves since birth. The African Union ordered Mauritania to compensate the two brothers, causing activists to claim that the ruling would lay the groundwork enforcing anti-slavery laws within the country.^[32] In 2015, the Mauritanian government expanded the definition of slavery to include child labor. ^[33] Extreme poverty and Islamic norms discourage many slaves from attempting to escape. Racial and ethnic division plays a role in Mauritanian government and society, as most slaves in Mauritania are Black while the ruling class tend to be Arab.^[34]

The international community is increasingly pressuring Mauritania to enforce its anti-slavery laws. Along with the African Union's recent ruling, the United States is considering downgrading its trade relations with Mauritania because of its poor record on enforcing its anti-slavery laws.^[35]

See also

• Human rights in Mauritania
• Human trafficking in Mauritania
• Islamic views on slavery
• Slavery in Africa
• Slavery in contemporary Africa

References

External links

• Slavery - Mauritania differentiating between facts and fiction Middle East Eye
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20070927174915/http://www.antislavery.org/archive/submission/submission2002-mauritania.htm Anti-Slavery International: Forced labour in Mauritania], Anti-Slavery International
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060811200908/http://www.iabolish.org/activist_ctr/abolitionists/abdel-nasser-ould-yessa.html Interview with a former slaveholder from Mauritania], iabolish.org
• African Liberation Forces of Mauritania on opposition to slavery
• Freedom from Slavery in Mauritania, BBC Radio
• Slavery’s last stronghold, CNN documentary
• [https://www.npr.org/programs/specials/racism/010828.mauritania.html Slavery Lives on in Mauritania], NPR
• UNHR Special Rapporteur on Contemporary forms of slavery

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