The price of a woman? $500

In what will hopefully be a landmark decision, a West African court ruled that the Republic of Niger failed to protect a woman from being sold into slavery when she was 12 years old.

The Community Court of Justice, the judicial body of the West African regional organization ECOWAS, ordered the Niger government to pay close to $20,000 in damages to Hadijatou Mani, who is now 24.

Slavery wasn't officially outlawed in Niger until 2003, but remains a problem there and in nearby West African countries like Mali and Mauritania.

As The New York Times reported:

Ms. Mani’s experience was typical of the practice. She was born into a traditional slave class and sold to Souleymane Naroua when she was 12 for about $500.

Ms. Mani told court officials that Mr. Naroua had forced her to work his fields for a decade. She also claimed that he raped her repeatedly over the years.

"I was beaten so many times I would run back to my family," she told the BBC. "Then after a day or two I would be brought back."

[...]

She had initially sought protection under Niger’s laws. In 2005, Mr. Naroua gave her a certificate freeing her, but when she tried to get married he claimed that she was already married to him.

Some observers have compared Ms. Mani to Rosa Parks. This is probably an understatement. It's difficult to imagine how much courage it took for her to bring the case in an extremely conservative society by challenging traditional practices that have been going on for generations.

The Niger government said it would respect the court's decision.


Also see:
-Anti-Slavery International
-Free the Slaves
-UN information of human trafficking

Football slavery

The BBC World Service's Assignment program has a documentary on how unscrupulous European clubs and agents prey on young African kids who dream of becoming professional soccer players and lure them into what is rightly described as 'football slavery.'

(The audio is here but will probably only be available at this link through next Wednesday.)

The UK Guardian ran an expose last year on the same scandal.

Fighting slavery in Mauritania

A friend of my family's recently went to Mauritania as a Peace Corps Volunteer. It will be interesting to see how the ardent young feminist handles it. She spent time in the very macho country of El Salvador, so she's probably more ready than most. But Mauritania is one of the most closed societies in the world.

Mauritania banned slavery only in 1980. But it's still believed to be practiced despite the legal abolition.

The new government in the country is proposing a law that would toughen penalties for slavery. The act would be punishable by up to 10 years in prison and thousands of dollars in fines.

However, the domestic anti-slavery NGO SOS Esclaves says the current proposal does not specify contemporary aspects of slavery, such as forced marriage, indentured labor or debt bondage and that 10 years of prison is inadequate.

Observers warn that the new law will be pointless if it remains largely unenforced, like the previous law.

Bernard Freamon, an Islamic legal researcher at Yale University, says slavery will continue even with the new law if there is no strict enforcement.

"The legitimacy of a law like that is going to be undermined, if the people charged with enforcing the law perceive it as something just designed to make people in the human rights community feel better," he noted.

Freamon says some Muslims wrongly interpret the Koran to justify slavery. He says slavery will end only when religious leaders publicly denounce slavery.

"It will disappear because each of the scholars will go back to their mosques, their local imams [local religious leaders]," he added. "They will issue an edict that will be very persuasive and authoritative in terms of the local Muslims in that community."

Freamon adds modern day slavery will also exist as long as there are people desperate for food, health care and housing.