Nine children are probably dead. Killed in a fire. Most of them were Koranic students because their poor parents entrusted their care to a holy man. Plan was, they’d beg for him during the day, study with him at night.
Iffy plan, if you ask me. Now nine are presumed dead, seven have definitely passed.
The seven had been locked in their room in the wooden dwelling and could not be saved, residents said, as flames, fanned by high winds from the nearby Atlantic Ocean, consumed the house. The other children managed to escape, they said, or had been sleeping outside.
This arrangement is fairly common.
Human rights groups say there are some 50,000 of these children here, some as young as 5, forced to beg on dangerous streets by the holy men, known as marabouts, and kept in precarious living conditions in flimsy dwellings, often given little to eat.
Lovely. Just lovely.
Within Senegal, there is sporadic pressure to end the system, and last month the government promised, again, to end forced child-begging by 2015. Human Rights Watch, which reported extensively on the practice three years ago, said Sunday’s fire underscored the urgent need for reform. In its 2010 report, the group said the children were often severely punished if they failed to meet a begging quota each day.
Cases of talibés being crushed in traffic while begging are frequently reported in the local news media, but the number of deaths in the fire made it one of the worst accidents involving the boys in recent years. The marabout was not even on the premises when the fire started, residents said.
“They were here alone,” said Ismael Gakou, 32, a shopkeeper who lives next door. “How can you leave them alone like that?”
But, working with a “holy man” must be pretty awesome?
“They read the Koran until 8 p.m., then he leaves for his apartment,” Mr. Gakou said, referring to the marabout. “He treats them badly.”
There is little electricity in the neighborhood, and residents said that an overturned candle in the boys’ room had started the fire. By the time the fire department arrived, at least 15 minutes after the alarm was raised — pushing through the warren of narrow, sandy alleys leading to the house — it was too late.
“When the fire started, the children were locked in the room,” said Awa Sow, who also lived in the one-story, 12-room house. “They were yelling. But nobody could get in.”
Sigh.
“In the face of this tragedy, the Senegalese government must finally tackle the country’s widespread abuse and exploitation of young boys through forced begging,” Human Rights Watch said in a statement Monday. “Tens of thousands of boys continue to live and beg in extremely precarious conditions, enriching teachers who have twisted the country’s proud tradition of religious education.”
Mr. Gakou, the neighbor, saw the victims’ remains carried out early Monday in plastic bags. “The whole neighborhood is in mourning,” he said. “Nobody around here has slept.”
*Update* The government has responded to this tragedy and is moving to eliminate the practice of using children to beg for holy men.
Senegal’s president Macky Sall said his government will repatriate thousands of children from neighbouring countries who are swelling up the number of child beggars in the country.
He said his government will soon begin arrangements with the authorities of the concerned countries to speed up the repatriation.
President Macky Sall made the statement on Monday evening during a visit to the Dakar district of Medina where seven young talibés in a Koranic school who died in a fire on Sunday night.
The talibés are children studying in Koranic schools and are often referred to as child beggars because their teachers tend to send them out to the streets to beg, a practice officialdom has long disapproved of.
Great words. Let’s see some action.
The Koranic schools or daras have with time become unable to house the talibés properly and in fact social workers accuse them of being “dungeons.”
During his visit to the scene of the Sunday accident, President Sall promised strict measures against the daras including closing down substandard ones.
He said he was not against the idea of giving alms to children, but “I’m completely against the idea of sending children to beg in the streets all day while they live in inhumane condition. This is inadmissible”.
The government has offered assistance for the care of Senegalese talibés whose parents are incapacitated.
The issue of talibés has remained a bone of contention between the government, the Islamic community and the UN children’s agency Unicef.
I’m looking forward to seeing how this situation turns out. It’s too bad it took the death of so many children to ignite a response.
