THE CENTRE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS (UNIVERSITY OF PRETORIA) AND LA
RENCONTRE AFRICAINE POUR LA DEFENSE DES DROITS DE L’HOMME
(SENEGAL)
Versus
GOVERNMENT OF SENEGAL
DECISION: No 003/Com/001/2012
Near ed of Alleged Facts
On 27 July 2012 the Secretariat of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights
and Welfare of the Child (henceforth, “the Committee”) received a communication,
pursuant to Article 44(1) of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
Child
(herein
after, “the Charter’),
submitted
by the Centre
for Human
Rights,
University of Pretoria (South Africa) and La Rencontre Africaine pour la Défense des
Droits de I'Homme (RADDHO) of Senegal (all of which shall be referred later as “the
Complainants”).
2.
The Complainants are
talibés), aged between
Quranic schools known
(henceforth, referred to
alleging that children as many as
100,000
(known as
4 and 12 years, are sent away by their parents to live in
as daaras in the urban centres of the Republic of Senegal
as “the Respondent State”) allegedly to receive religious
education. The Complainants allege that the situation depicts the difficulties that
such children are facing in attaining government schooling.
3.
The Complainants, moreover, allege that the talibés are forced by their instructors
(known as marabouts') to work on the streets as beggars. According to the
Complainants, such forced child begging has been an on-going practice in the
Respondent State since the 1980s, despite the existence of provisions in the Penal
Code? outlawing the practice of forcing a child to beg.* These penal provisions have
been reinforced by the Law to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Related Practices
and to Protect Victims adopted by the Respondent State in 2005*, which prescribes
5-10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of five to twenty million CFA francs for a person
found guilty of forcing a child to beg.
4.
According to the Complaints, despite the existence of these legislations, the
Respondent State has made little efforts to enforce these provisions with a view to
penalizing the marabouts who force talibés to beg, consequent to which as of 2011
According to the Complainants, the marabouts are not generally trained as school teachers.
5 kaw 65-60 of 21 July 1965.
5 hatches 62912 2ddlp)! 86th Penal Code prescribe a 3-6 month term of imprisonment for any person who allows a
* Articles 245 to 247(b) of the Penal Code prescribe a 3-6 month term of imprisonment for any person who allows a
child to beg on his or her behalf.
* Law No. 2005-06 of Senegal.