A Criminal Silence
By keeping silent on the spectacle of talibés children in the streets, Senegal becomes an
accomplice to crime.
The human resource is the inevitable pillar of all strategy for sustainable development… A
country like Senegal that boasts of having made giant steps on the difficult path of democracy and
human rights, but keeps a criminal silence in face of the deplorable spectacle of children begging
in the street, often very young , mortified, foul-smelling, barefoot and opened to all sanitary risks.
What type of country is this, where a mother, after having gone through the long months of
pregnancy and risked her life while giving life, is able to watch the fruit of its loins stretch a hand
to passer-bys, nourish himself from the garbage cans, or expose himself to the deadly dangers of
the street? What type of country is this, where religion, instead of giving to human beings all
their dignity, is instead used as a pretext for begging?
Illiteracy, dogmatism and fatalism lead couples to make children without thinking about the
means to raise and maintain them. Women, under pressure from tyrannical and careless husbands,
get pregnant without being able to face the costs of essential antenatal visits or even the type of
food adequate for their situation and favorable to the normal development of the intra-uterine life
that they carry. A child is made and when one knows oneself unable to maintain it, one offers it to
an aunt, a brother or a cousin like an object, a burden from which one discharges.
Koranic Masters send children in the street while claiming to initiate them at humility and the
difficulties of life. This reasoning is unacceptable for whoever is mindful of the value human
being and the vulnerability of the child. To teach religion is a noble task, but to accustom the
child to the easy profit and the street, at a very early stage of its life, is an educational tragedy.
First and foremost on the bench of the accused is the government of Senegal. It is principally
responsible for the security and the wellbeing of all its citizens, and for making sure that the
various laws, rules and regulations are respected. The government makes a lot of speeches on the
issue of the Talibes, but few concrete actions, founded on real political will, could be observed.
Yet, in an area as delicate, involving the requirement of the protection of children, "it is better to
do than to talk". If the small beggars had the required age to vote, perhaps the government would
have paid more attention to them, given its logic and mindset of political clients.
Instead of attacking the problem at the root and in a systematic and protracted manner, the
government seems to be satisfied with an action here and there, such as gathering talibés under
the national TV camera, one day during Ramadan, and give them rice; or merely praise the merits
of isolated centers with the ridiculous capacities of reception, while the crushing it majority of the
child beggars is in the street, often until late hours of the night, becoming thus easy preys to
pedophiles and child traffickers.
Knowing that the many of the schools from which come these children, more graduates at
begging than at reciting the Koran, are under the control of religious leaders, the government is
afraid to raise its voice on the issue of the talibes, so as to preserve the sympathy of these
religious leaders, and thus, be in a position to collect the electoral votes of their followers.
A radical change is a must. The campaigns of sensitization of the people concerned seem to have
shown their limits. Besides,is there better sensitization than the images of these innocent God’s
bits of wood stretching a starving hand to often indifferent adults who, at the limit, seek to
alleviate their conscience by giving alms to these precocious beggars? The official recognition of
the koranic schools, their equipment in school canteens and parents associations could, for
example, be tested.
The begging of children is prohibited as such, but it is urgent to build the type of legislative
framework that will punish, with all the rigor that the protection of these vulnerable citizens
requires, all those who, directly or indirectly, contribute to turning children into a beggar. Neither
the parents nor the Masters would escape then. But the passing of laws never solved any
problems in Africa, where these laws are blatantly and routinely violated by the citizens,
including civil servants, in absolute impunity. Moreover, the relevant provisions of the
conventions on the rights of the child ratified by Senegal are royally ignored. What is needed is
setting up a draconian system of monitoring all the main crossroads in order to track this plague
that offers a sad image of a country located at the door of Africa.
Rosnert Ludovic AUSSOUTIN