Child Beggars in Senegal
As people become more conscious of what is going on in other countries, some revelations can be shocking like in West Africa. For example, in Senegal, children are forced to beg but everything they earn is taken away by Quranic schools’ teachers. These child beggars live in horrible living conditions. There are some laws to help them out, but they still have a long way to come to actually have freedom. Children are forced to get money and food for their teachers. At that early age, children should not have to worry about these kind of things, and experience such abuse. Every child deserves the same rights no matter what; children in Senegal do not deserve to live in these conditions.
Senegal has a very special role …show more content…
There are others who take advantage of the system in order to exploit children through begging. These Quranic teachers are getting rich. Some get so rich that they leave the country to live abroad. In addition, they choose the poorest, rural regions of the country as well as from neighboring countries, particularly Guinea-Bissau. Most of the parents who send their child to Quranic schools willing to send their child by a wish for the child to memorize the Quran and acquire a moral education. However, for some parents, they want to pass over all responsibilities to the teachers by sending them to the Quranic schools. It becomes the teacher’s responsibility, and no longer their own, to feed, house, and care for the child (Wells [1] 12). After they compromised, the marabout takes them to a bus for crossing the border into Senegal. Then children are passed over to another marabout. Most of the talibes are sent to Dakar, but also some of them are taken to Saint-Louis. Before long, the first marabout come back to take the talibes to his own Quranic school (Holtz …show more content…
That’s when the struggle for their rights reached a turning point. The government soon after realized that thousands of children were being imported illegally from Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Guinea by people imitating marabouts, and using the kids to beg for their personal benefits (Matthew 4). Immediately after the fire, president Macky Sall and the prime minister at the time, went to the school and they said, “Never again, this cannot happen!” They were really strong promises made about applying a law against force begging (Senegal: Stop Forced Child Begging). The law establishes serious models and standards about school circumstances and teacher qualifications. For example, the law requires that the schools submit to education and health inspections; and the government wants to end the practice of begging from all schools. Judge El Hadji Malick Sow told Human Rights Watch, “The law is not being ignored, it is starting to be enforced but timidly. We are working to expand and increase its application. As well as give the police the means to go out onto the streets, work with the child victims. There is a need to identify the so-called Quranic teachers who are putting them on the street, and identify the places where these children are housed”. After that, the question was asked by Matt Wells,
As people become more conscious of what is going on in other countries, some revelations can be shocking like in West Africa. For example, in Senegal, children are forced to beg but everything they earn is taken away by Quranic schools’ teachers. These child beggars live in horrible living conditions. There are some laws to help them out, but they still have a long way to come to actually have freedom. Children are forced to get money and food for their teachers. At that early age, children should not have to worry about these kind of things, and experience such abuse. Every child deserves the same rights no matter what; children in Senegal do not deserve to live in these conditions.
Senegal has a very special role …show more content…
There are others who take advantage of the system in order to exploit children through begging. These Quranic teachers are getting rich. Some get so rich that they leave the country to live abroad. In addition, they choose the poorest, rural regions of the country as well as from neighboring countries, particularly Guinea-Bissau. Most of the parents who send their child to Quranic schools willing to send their child by a wish for the child to memorize the Quran and acquire a moral education. However, for some parents, they want to pass over all responsibilities to the teachers by sending them to the Quranic schools. It becomes the teacher’s responsibility, and no longer their own, to feed, house, and care for the child (Wells [1] 12). After they compromised, the marabout takes them to a bus for crossing the border into Senegal. Then children are passed over to another marabout. Most of the talibes are sent to Dakar, but also some of them are taken to Saint-Louis. Before long, the first marabout come back to take the talibes to his own Quranic school (Holtz …show more content…
That’s when the struggle for their rights reached a turning point. The government soon after realized that thousands of children were being imported illegally from Guinea-Bissau, Mali, Guinea by people imitating marabouts, and using the kids to beg for their personal benefits (Matthew 4). Immediately after the fire, president Macky Sall and the prime minister at the time, went to the school and they said, “Never again, this cannot happen!” They were really strong promises made about applying a law against force begging (Senegal: Stop Forced Child Begging). The law establishes serious models and standards about school circumstances and teacher qualifications. For example, the law requires that the schools submit to education and health inspections; and the government wants to end the practice of begging from all schools. Judge El Hadji Malick Sow told Human Rights Watch, “The law is not being ignored, it is starting to be enforced but timidly. We are working to expand and increase its application. As well as give the police the means to go out onto the streets, work with the child victims. There is a need to identify the so-called Quranic teachers who are putting them on the street, and identify the places where these children are housed”. After that, the question was asked by Matt Wells,