Forced Begging in Senegal

By Nicole Vander Meulen

WikiMediaCommons, Barry Pousman

As soon as the taxi stopped, I noticed a few young boys dart out into the street.  They were each holding a rusty tin can, which they shoved into open car windows, waiting for a generous individual to drop a few coins in.  At that time I assumed (along with most visitors to Dakar, Senegal) that these children were simply begging on the street so that they could feed themselves.  The reality was, in fact, worse.

Instead, many of these children were actually being forced to beg for the economic benefit of corrupt religious teachers.  Traditionally, young children in Senegal were sent to learn the Koran at religious schools (daaras) where the religious leader (marabout) was either an extended family member or a man from their village.  In exchange for religious instruction, the children would help the marabout cultivate his land and would go to the homes of community members to collect food donations.  Any begging that did occur was used to teach the children humility, not as a means of economic gain.  Currently, some corrupt urban marabouts force a number of their 40-100 students to beg on the streets.  With the children separated from their communities and often unable to contact their parents, they are now left very vulnerable to this sort of exploitation.  Some of these corrupt teachers don’t even know the Koran.