Senegal Debates Merits of Ban on Begging

• by Bakary Coulibaly (dakar)
• Thursday, November 25, 2010
• Inter Press Service

'We spend less time in traffic downtown now than back in the day, when we often had difficulty finding a route because of the beggars,' said Babacar Diagne, a taxi driver.

The origin of the change is a ban, decreed in August, on begging on public roadways.

'Senegal faces criticism from its partners who believe it hasn't effectively fought against human trafficking even though it ratified the human trafficking protocol [of the Convention against Transnational Organized Crime], said the country's prime minister, Souleymane Ndéné Ndiaye.

'Begging is organised by networks who force young people to go out and bring money back to them, which they use for their own purposes,' he said.

'This measure doesn't seek to forbid begging, but it will permit the talibés [Islamic students] and beggars to gather at mosques or churches where they can receive donations and alms from generous benefactors.,' said Ndiaye.

Dakar alone is host to between seven and eight thousand children who survive as mendicants, and an unknown additional number of people with disabilities who make a living begging for alms.

It is traditional in several countries in the sub-region to send children away for a religious education. A third of of Dakar's 'talibés' - from the Arabic word for student - are from Guinea-Bissau, from Peul villages just across the border in the northern regions of Bafata, Gabou and Birada. Another third come from another of Senegal's neighbours, Mali.

But poor economic conditions in rural areas mean both that parents send their children to Islamic schools without the traditional gifts that contribute towards their upkeep, and that talibés are more and more concentrated in the relative wealth of the Dakar. In and around the capital, many marabouts, as the teachers in religious schools are commonly known, are accused of exploiting the children in their care.

Resisting displacement

The law encountered immediate hostility. The day after the decision, thirty beggars - mostly people with disabilities - staged an angry demonstration in the centre of the city.

Mor Thiobane, who is visually impaired, acted as a spokesperson for the demonstrators. 'It's an arbritrary measure which will deprive us of our only source of income,' he said.

Some religious leaders and marabouts in Dakar and beyond have complained that they were not involved in reaching the decision to ban begging. 'They should have considered accompanying measures such as the setting up of canteens in the Islamic schools,' one said.

Others, more radical, figured they would force the state to repeal the law. Demonstrations and protests multiplied across the country. A hundred beggars were arrested by the police and seven marabouts were sentenced by the second week of September as the government stood firm.

In contrast to the response from marabouts and religious leaders, human rights defenders have welcomed the ban.

'It's a question of security and conscience,' said Denise d'Erneville, president of an association for the defense of heritage, the protection of ethical values and citizen conscience known as Convergences. She points out that begging is forbidden under Senegal's penal code.

Alioune Tine, the president of human rights group RADDHO (the French acronym for the Assembly for the Defense of Human Rights), also supports of the decision. 'Senegalese civil society has fought for the eradication of trafficking of children and worse forms of labour exploitation of children for more thn twenty years without success.'

But he called on the government 'to act with tact and care, always placing an emphasis on social communication and coordination with all those involved.'

The head of the Research Group on Women and the Law in Senegal (known by its French acronym, GREFELS), Aissatou Diagne, welcomed the decision but also demanded simultaneous action to help people stop begging.

Idrissa Seck, a former prime minister, called on Senegalese to cooperate with the new regulation, and to avoid conflating begging with the tradition of religious schools, which, he underlined, are not synonymous with exploitation, mistreatment and begging.

© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service

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