MAURITANIA: Children's Rights in the UN Special Procedures' Reports

Summary: This report extracts mentions of children's rights issues in the reports of the UN Special Procedures. This does not include reports of child specific Special Procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, which are available as separate reports.

Please note that the language may have been edited in places for the purpose of clarity.

Reports:

• Special Rapporteur on Slavery
• Special Rapporteur on Racism
• Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

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Special Rapporteur on Slavery
Gulnara Shahinian
(A/HRC/15/20/Add.2 )
Country visit: 24 October to 4 November 2009
Report published: 24 August 2010

Relevant international obligations:

Mauritania is party to the following international human rights instruments: International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment; the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women; the Convention on the Rights of the Child; the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography; and the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families. Mauritania has submitted reservations based on Islamic Sharia law to the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. For the purpose of this report, it is also important to note that Mauritania is party to the Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. (Paragraph 15)

Mauritania is also party to the following international instruments that expressly prohibit contemporary forms of slavery: 1926 Slavery Convention and Protocol amending the Slavery Convention, the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery of 1956; the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime; the International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 138 concerning Minimum Age for Admission to Employment; the ILO Convention No. 182 concerning the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour; and ILO Convention No. 29 concerning Forced or Compulsory Labour. (Paragraph 16)

Several treaty bodies1 have issued observations and recommendations related to slavery in Mauritania, the most recent of which has been the Committee on the Rights of the Child. In its concluding observations, the Committee expressed concerns about the high number of children engaged in labour, particularly in the agricultural sector, and the continued existence of caste–based slavery, which has a particular impact on girls in domestic service and boys forced to beg by marabouts (Islamic religious leaders or teachers). The Committee was also concerned about the absence of services to free and reintegrate children who were victims of slavery and over the lack of measures to educate the public about traditional slavery practices in general. The Committee recommended, inter alia, the need for Mauritania to take all necessary measures to eradicate slavery and, in particular, to ensure that perpetrators of such practices are held accountable in accordance with the law. The Committee urged Mauritania to implement a national strategy against slavery, including an analysis of its root causes, and take effective measures to free victims of slavery and provide them with psychosocial recovery and reintegration measures. (Paragraph 17)

Mauritania has also ratified the following regional agreements: the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights on the Rights of Women in Africa; and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child. (Paragraph 21)

Slavery practices: After analysing the interviews conducted with victims of slavery in Atar, in Rosso and from Nema, the Special Rapporteur believes that the situations described to her meet the key elements that define slavery.11 The victims described situations whereby they were completely controlled by their owner using physical and/or mental threats; could not independently make any decision related to their lives without his or her master's permission; were treated as commodities – for example, girls being given away as wedding presents; lacked freedom of movement; and were forced to work long hours with very little or no remuneration. In addition, the victims were further denied the right to inherit. These victims had escaped slavery and talked about the relatives that they had left behind who still lived in slavery. The Special Rapporteur therefore concluded that de facto slavery continues to exist in certain remote parts of Mauritania. (Paragraph 34)

In the rural areas, men, women, boys and girls continue to live in slavery. Slaves who flee often return to their masters because they lack alternative means of supporting themselves. The Special Rapporteur heard reports that some former slaves in rural areas face difficulties in acquiring ownership of land and some are forced to give a percentage of their produce to their former masters. Consequently, although they may be "freed", former slaves are still treated like slaves. (Paragraph 35)

The Special Rapporteur also heard reports about other slavery–like practices such as: forced early marriages; serfdom; worst forms of child labour, such as children who are forced to beg; trafficking; and domestic servitude, which affects men, women, boys and girls. These forms of slavery affect both former slaves and people who have historically never been in enslaved. However, the Special Rapporteur noted that in majority of her interviews, when she raised these issues, many did not consider these human rights violations as contemporary forms of slavery. (Paragraph 37)

Gendered aspects of slavery: Women are most at risk as they suffer triple discrimination: firstly as women, secondly as mothers and thirdly as slaves. They are viewed by their masters firstly as labour and secondly as producers of a labour force. Female slaves who live in their masters' homes are rarely allowed out of the master's camp and generally work from before sunrise to after sunset, caring for the master's children, fetching water, gathering firewood, pounding millet, moving tents made of heavy animal skin and performing other domestic tasks. Women in slavery are frequently beaten and sometimes raped by their masters who consider them to be their property. Their children are also considered the master's property and, along with other slaves, can be rented out or loaned or given as gifts in marriage. By giving away the children of a female slave, or another member of her family, the master is able to keep a tighter hold on the female slave. A slave mother is less likely to disobey or attempt to escape when she does not know where her children are and only her master possesses that information. Neither a slave mother nor a slave father has rights to their children. (Paragraph 38)

When a slave marries, the dowry may be seized by the master. In addition, a master may allow a marriage but refuse to "free" the slave thereby ensuring that through the marriage, the master gets the female slave's husband and future children to work for him or his kin. The master can also force separation or divorce between married slaves. In this situation, it is usually the male slave that is forced to leave, often after enduring a series of verbal and physical threats. This male slave is seen as a threat to the master's household as it is feared that he can influence the departure of the master's property (the female slave and their children). A slave husband and father is only recognized if the master consented to the marriage, which masters rarely do. Many slaves do not even know their father or grandfather. Generic names that are not the names of their biological parents are usually given to children at birth. (Paragraph 39)

Men, women and children who are slaves are denied their right to family life. This is in direct violation of international human rights instruments to which Mauritania is a party. (Paragraph 40)

The Special Rapporteur met with women and girls who had fled from slavery in the rural areas and had been forcefully separated from their families as a result of slavery. The women had spent their lives looking for their mothers and their children. In some instances, daughters found their mothers and were able to rescue them from slavery. However in other situations, daughters found their mothers and siblings who refused to leave their masters. This was either because of their religious beliefs or because they did not see any other economic alternatives. (Paragraph 41)

Children as victims of Slavery: Mauritanian law provides that children can work in the non–agricultural sector from the age of 14 and children under the age of 13 can only work in the agricultural sector if the Minister of Labour grants an exception owing to local circumstances. However, the Special Rapporteur heard reports of children younger than 13 years working in all sectors. (Paragraph 42)

There are two ways in which a child becomes a slave in contemporary Mauritania: by birth or when given away as a gift. Such children's right to be born free is violated and their basic rights to identity, family, childhood are denied. Every slave in Mauritania was also a slave as a child. The children grow up not knowing their parents or siblings. Their masters, as social relatives, become the closest thing to family. This makes it even more difficult for enslaved children to escape. In the cases where a master recognizes the children he has fathered with a slave, the children are usually separated from the mother. (Paragraph 43)

Enslaved children in the countryside usually work taking care of the livestock, cultivating subsistence crops and performing domestic work and other significant labour in support of their masters' activities. (Paragraph 44)

Children in slavery–like conditions in urban areas are often found working in domestic households. (Paragraph 45)

The phenomenon of the talibes (religious students or followers of specific religious sect or teacher), who are forced by marabouts to beg on the streets for the financial benefit of the marabouts, also exists. It is widely believed that these children are not Mauritanian and come from Senegal and Mali. Using children for begging is considered a form of slavery.13 The Special Rapporteur was informed that the Government is working with religious leaders to put an end to this practice. However, in many of the conversations that the Special Rapporteur had in the country, many did not consider forced begging to be a form of slavery. (Paragraph 46)

The Special Rapporteur also heard reports of forced early marriages, some of which involved girls trafficked for forced marriages to other countries. This is in direct violation of article 2 of the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery, the Slave Trade, and Institutions and Practices Similar to Slavery, which forbids forced early marriages. (Paragraph 47)

The law is difficult to enforce in nomadic communities in rural areas. It is easier to tackle slavery within communities that are more sedentary or live in urban areas. For example, children are not systematically registered, especially in rural areas. It is therefore difficult to monitor children on the move with their masters. Porous borders with Algeria, Mali, Morocco and Senegal mean that it is easy for masters to keep their slaves and difficult to inform slaves and masters that slavery no longer exists. Slaves are also used to this kind of nomadic life, without which they see no other alternative. (Paragraph 93)

Street children: The Minister of Families, Children and Social Affairs informed the Special Rapporteur of the collaboration between her and the Ministry of Interior to address the issue of street children, some of which are talibes, in Nouakchott. Children living on the streets are likely to be working on the streets, which makes them vulnerable to slavery–like abuses.18 There is a specialized police force which is trained to work with children. The Minister of Interior informed the Special Rapporteur that the children were offered education or vocational training and provided with shelter. The Minister of Interior also told the Special Rapporteur that they were monitoring madrassas to ensure that children are not encouraged to go begging for their religious teachers. (Paragraph 75)

Children of slaves: In the past, Mauritanian children of slaves were trafficked to work as camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates. The Minister of Families, Children and Social Affairs, informed the Special Rapporteur that, in 2005, those children had been repatriated to Mauritania and, wherever possible, reunited with their families as part of a programme. The programme also focused on ensuring that the children were properly integrated back into communities and received compensation that would help them go to school or provide incoming–generating tools for the older returnees. The Government had developed an action plan and programme steering committee, worked jointly with NGOs and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and monitored progress of their work. The Special Rapporteur was informed that, after two years, the programme had ended because it had met its objectives. (Paragraph 76)

Programmes to restore the rights of children of ex–slaves are crucial. These programmes should focus on providing these children with birth registration with their natural identity, access to schooling and reuniting children with their families. (Paragraph 111)

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Special Rapporteur on Racism
Mr. Doudou Diène
(A/HRC/11/36/Add.2 )
Country visit: 20 to 24 January 2008
Report published: 16 March 2009

International obligations: The adoption on 3 September 2007 of the Act criminalizing slavery and punishing slavery-like practices was a turning point in the approach to this issue in Mauritania. The Prime Minister, introducing the bill, described it as "a decisive turning point, aimed at the elimination of all the wrongs inherited from the past, the promotion of a culture of equality, tolerance and citizenship and the establishment of favourable conditions for progress and the emancipation of all Mauritanians". That position is in contrast to the attitude of complete denial at the highest level of the State in the past, as evidenced for example in 1997 when President Ould Taya stated that those who raised the issue of slavery were only trying to tarnish the country's image and must be linked to a group previously involved in an attempted coup d'état. More recently, in September 2001, a representative of the Government of Mauritania stated to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that "Mauritanian society had never known servitude, exclusion or discrimination [...] and no vestiges of such practices could thus persist". (Paragraph 26)

Education: The officials who met with the Special Rapporteur emphasized the efforts being made to promote all languages and cultures in Mauritania. While they are aware of the polarization in the past of the black Mauritanian and Arab Mauritanian communities along ethnic lines, they strongly deny the existence of language policies that might give an advantage to a particular community and encourage social polarization. The Minister of Education for example recalled that since 1999 there has been a single education system for all children, whatever their ethnic or tribal origin. She also drew attention to the current programmes of the Ministry of Education, including the holding in the near future of a national conference on education to review the values and objectives the education system should transmit, and the launching of initiatives aimed at eliminating any discriminatory content from teaching materials. The Minister likewise stressed the importance, in the context of the voluntary return of Mauritanian refugees from Senegal, of developing an educational strategy to fashion a common history based on a feeling of belonging and on the acceptance by all communities of the unity of the Mauritanian nation. (Paragraph 40)

During his visit to the deprived El-Mina neighbourhood in Nouakchott, the Special Rapporteur met with women from the Pular and Soninke communities, who described their social marginalization, leading in particular to difficulties in access to decent housing; lack of drinking water and electricity; problems of access to school for their children; and obstacles caused by their poor command of Arabic. That visit highlighted for the Special Rapporteur the overlap between the distribution of socio-economic marginalization and that of ethnic communities; he was told that certain ethnic communities were increasingly being squeezed into specific areas of the capital, and that the black Mauritanian population in particular was increasingly concentrated in the most disadvantaged areas. (Paragraph 51)

Slavery: During a meeting with slaves and former slaves, the Special Rapporteur heard several reports of the reluctance of the police and the courts to follow up allegations of slavery-like practices brought to their attention, either because of ignorance of the law or simply pressure from certain communities or tribes. The case of Ms. Tarba Mint M'Boyrick, born a slave in a family in the town of Guérou, in the Assaba region in south-eastern Mauritania, and the mother of two children she said she had been forced to abandon because of ill-treatment at the hands of her masters, provides an example of the authorities' attitude. In October 2007 she lodged a complaint against the family for slavery and trafficking in minors. Although the police initially freed the children on the orders of the wali (governor) of Assaba, and following the family's admission that the children were "slaves by descent" and had never attended school, the Public Prosecutor of the Court of Appeal in Kiffa ordered the release of the family and returned the two children to them on the grounds that Tarba Mint M'Boyrick had failed to bring them up but had abandoned them, whereas the family she had lodged a complaint against had fed and supported them. (Paragraph 56)

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Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
(A/HRC/10/21/Add.2 )
Country visit: 19 February to 3 March 2008
Report published: 21 November 2008

Prisons: The Penitentiary Services Department is a part of the Ministry of Justice. The penitentiary system in Mauritania is governed by Decree No. 98-078 of 26 October 1998, on the organization and functioning of penitentiaries; Decree No. 70-153 on the internal system within penitentiaries; and the Criminal Code and Code of Criminal Procedure. There are currently 15 prisons in Mauritania: one in each wilaya; and a women's prison and a prison for minors in Nouakchott. The number of persons held in facilities run by the Ministry of Justice stood at 1,145 in January 2008. Supervision of the penitentiary administration has been transferred from the Ministry of the Interior to the Ministry of Justice, so as to facilitate the establishment of a penitentiary system geared towards reintegration. (Paragraph 18)

The Working Group recognizes that the number of persons deprived of their liberty is not very high in Mauritania, which may indicate that liberty is highly valued and generally respected. It was informed that some non-punitive mechanisms existed and were in use to deal with offences under the Criminal Code, and it welcomed that information. According to the statistics given by the Ministry of Justice, in all the Ministry's penitentiaries there are fewer than 1,200 detainees and convicts. In the three towns visited by the Working Group, which are among the largest in the country, the Dar Naim local prison held 714 prisoners, including 28 women, 26 minors and about 100 foreigners (513 of the total were in pretrial detention and 201 had been convicted); in Nouadhibou prison there were 115 prisoners, including 42 in pretrial detention; and Rosso prison held 27 prisoners, including 6 in pretrial detention. (Paragraph 41)

Juvenile justice: Order No. 2005-015, on defence of children in criminal matters, calls for the establishment in each district (moughataa) of a police station or special police unit for children. Special guarantees are provided for children who have been arrested. Children may be held in police custody for no more than 24 hours, and the senior law enforcement officer must immediately inform the child's parents or legal guardian (art. 101). The right to be seen by a doctor is also set out (art. 102), and access to counsel is obligatory from custody onwards. (Paragraph 33)

In addition, articles 60 to 63 of the Criminal Code set out specific measures and extenuating circumstances for minors in conflict with the criminal law. (Paragraph 34)

Domestic laws: The Working Group notes with satisfaction that improvements have been made, with the adoption of the new Code of Criminal Procedure, to strengthen the legal regime for the protection of rights and freedoms in the criminal justice system. In particular, persons in police custody have access to counsel and the right to contact their families, the length of police custody and pretrial detention has been shortened, and the rights of the defence have been consolidated. Notwithstanding some shortcomings, this represents a clear improvement over the previous code. The Working Group also welcomes the adoption of the laws on legal aid and on child protection. (Paragraph 40)