Jakarta –
For many years, human rights organizations in West Africa have been concerned with the problem of Islamic boarding school students being abused and forced to beg. This phenomenon called “Talibe” is concentrated in Senegal. “Recently, unscrupulous criminals are increasingly using the business model of Islamic boarding schools in neighboring countries such as my home country of Guinea-Bissau. They are taking advantage of the sad fact that the public school system here has practically collapsed,” said Suleimane Embal from the local child protection association, AGLUCOMI-TSH.
Poor families in particular are encouraged to enroll their children in Islamic boarding schools, said Embal. The children were given food and shelter. But not infrequently, these children end up as street beggars. There they have to beg all day long, Embal told DW. They only study the Koran – if there is one – in the morning and evening.
In many cases, the living conditions in the schools were undeserved: the boys were exposed to hunger, disease and humiliation. Those who disobey will be persecuted. “This is terrible. Begging is a factor of poverty and has nothing to do with religion,” said Suleimane Embal.
Facing public pressure, Guinea-Bissau President Umaro Sissoco Embal promised to tackle this problem with full force. “Put children in school and stop sending them to beg. This is not Islam,” he said. “Whoever sends their child to the streets, from March 27 will end up in jail,” the president threatened.
According to the Guinean Child Protection Association, there are 22 Islamic boarding schools called “daaras” in Bissau. More than 700 children between the ages of three and 18 attend school there. At least 200 of them beg on the streets every day. 15 percent of them are orphans.
In the past, the media has reported extensively about students being illegally kidnapped to neighboring Senegal. Periodically, military patrols from Guinea-Bissau identify groups of children who are to be secretly taken across the border into Senegal. Such cases are widely reported by local as well as international media.
“There were also reports, for example, of Daara in Touba, east of Dakar, where children who had just arrived from Guinea-Bissau, Mauritania, Gambia and Mali were allegedly chained beforehand until they were frightened,” recalls the child rights activist. , Suleiman Embal. After that, the teachers in Senegal allegedly forced them to beg.
Similar to Guinea-Bissau and other countries in this region, in Senegal there are also no standard rules for opening Islamic boarding schools. Everyone can call himself a “marabout”, that is, a teacher of the Koran. For this reason, there are marabouts in many places who are not interested in teaching children, but only exploiting them, said Embal.
(haf/haf)
