Where’s the Moral Outrage?!?!?

Where is the United Nations Human Rights Council? Where is Bishop Desmond Tutu? Where are the black organization in the US? Where are the Islamic groups? Where is the moral outrage?!?!?!? Ah yes, Islamic schools do a superb job in Senegal!

DAKAR, Senegal - On the day he decided to run away, 9-year-old Coli awoke on a filthy mat.

Like a pup, he lay curled against the cold, pressed between dozens of other children sleeping head-to-toe on the concrete floor. His T-shirt was damp with the dew that seeped through the thin walls. The older boys had yanked away the square of cloth he used to protect himself from the draft. He shivered.

It was still dark as he set out for the mouth of a freeway with the other boys, a tribe of 7-, 8- and 9-year-old beggars.

Coli padded barefoot between the stopped cars, his head reaching only halfway up the windows. His scrawny body disappeared under a ragged T-shirt that grazed his knees. He held up an empty tomato paste can as his begging bowl.

There are 1.2 million Colis in the world today, children trafficked to work for the benefit of others. Those who lure them into servitude make $15 billion annually, according to the International Labor Organization.

Are you appalled yet, gentle reader? Read on!

It’s big business in Senegal. In the capital of Dakar alone, at least 7,600 child beggars work the streets, according to a study released in February by the ILO, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Bank. The children collect an average of 300 African francs a day, just 72 cents, reaping their keepers $2 million a year.

Most of the boys — 90 percent, the study found — are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. For among the cruelest facts of Coli’s life is that he was not stolen from his family. He was brought to Dakar with their blessing to learn Islam’s holy book.

Ah, yes! A great education he’s getting. One that will surely prepare for all lives eventualities… if he doesn’t die or get killed…

In the name of religion, Coli spent two hours a day memorizing verses from the Quran and over nine hours begging to pad the pockets of the man he called his teacher.

It was getting dark. Coli had less than half the 72 cents he was told to bring back. He was afraid. He knew what happened to children who failed to meet their daily quotas.

They were stripped and doused in cold water. The older boys picked them up like hammocks by their ankles and wrists. Then the teacher whipped them with an electrical cord until the cord ate their skin.

Coli’s head hurt with hunger. He could already feel the slice of the wire on his back.

He slipped away, losing himself in a tide of honking cars. He had 20 cents in his tomato can.

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Three years ago, a man wearing a skullcap came to Coli’s village in the neighboring country of Guinea-Bissau and asked for him.

Coli’s parents immediately addressed the man as “Serigne,” a term of respect for Muslim leaders on Africa’s western coast. Many poor villagers believe that giving a Muslim holy man a child to educate will gain an entire family entrance to paradise.

Since the 11th century, families have sent their sons to study at the Quranic schools that flourished on Africa’s western seaboard with the rise of Islam. It is forbidden to charge for an Islamic education, so the students, known as talibe, studied for free with their marabouts, or spiritual teachers. In return, the children worked in the marabout’s fields.

The droughts of the late 1970s and ’80s forced many schools to move to cities, where their income began to revolve around begging. Today, children continue to flock to the cities, as food and work in villages run short.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take.

Not all Quranic boarding schools force their students to beg. But for the most part, what was once an esteemed form of education has degenerated into child trafficking. Nowadays, Quranic instructors net as many children as they can to increase their daily take. “Holy Men” using religion to get rich… Is that what it’s all about?
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His tomato can tucked under one arm, Coli jumped on the back of a bus, holding on to the swinging rear door. He was hundreds of miles from the village where he grew up speaking Peuhl, a language not commonly heard in Dakar.

He could not ask the Senegalese for help. So he got directions in Peuhl from other child beggars, who like him were trafficked here from the zone of green savannah just outside Senegal.

Coli made his way to a neighborhood where he had heard of a place that gave free food to children like him.

“Do you know where you come from?” asked the kind-faced woman at Empire des Enfants. The shelter’s capacity is 30 children, but it usually houses at least 50.

Coli knew the name of his mother, but not how to reach her. He knew the name of the region where he was born, but not his village. “My mother is black,” he said. “I’m sure I’ll recognize her.”

The shelter worker told Coli what to do if his marabout came. We will protect you, she said. If he tries to grab you, scream.

Days went by. Maybe weeks.

Then Coli’s marabout arrived.

In 2005, Senegal made it a crime punishable by five years in prison to force a child to beg. But the same law makes an exception for children begging for religious reasons. Few dare to cross marabouts for fear of supernatural retaliation.

Coli’s marabout entered the shelter flanked by a column of religious leaders in cascading robes that tumbled onto the ground. One of them stabbed his finger at the clouds and yelled out, “The sky will fall down on you if you don’t hand over our children.”

The shelter is used to such threats. But this time the marabouts had discovered the center’s legal paperwork was not complete. They threatened to close the shelter if it did not hand over 11 boys.

To save more than 40 others, the shelter handed over the 11. Coli was on the list.

Back at the school, they beat the 9-year-old until he thought he was going to faint. At night, they dragged him off the floor, doused him in water and beat him again.

Three days later, he ran away again. When he arrived at the shelter, he said: “I want to go home to my mom.”

“I want to go home to my mom.” Where is the moral outrage? Why does no one hear the cry of these boys? Is it because they are too far away? Is it because they are black?!?!?

[…]
___

Early on the fifth morning, a woman in a pressed peach robe walks up to the shelter.

Coli rushes outside. He stands a few feet away as tears topple down his cheeks. She covers her face with her veil and weeps.

The two sit side-by-side in plastic chairs. Coli’s mother looks at her feet. Her family is poor, she says, and she wanted Coli to get an education. It took her several days to reach the shelter because she didn’t have $2 for the bus fare.

For more than an hour, Coli cries. Tears run down either side of his cheeks, forming two watery garlands. They meet at his chin and plop down on his collar bone, pooling above his shirt.

She stands up and wipes his chin. They leave, crossing the dusty boulevard.

Her arm reaches around his shoulder and the long sleeve of her robe falls around the little boy. It hides him from the remaining children, who silently watch Coli go home.

___

EPILOGUE:

Soon after Coli left, his marabout traveled to Guinea-Bissau. He angrily demanded to know why Coli had run away.

Ashamed, Coli’s father promised to make up for the boy’s bad behavior.

He is sending the marabout two more sons.

Gentle reader, if this story has not filled you with rage, if it hasn’t pulled at your heartstrings… then you haveheart! There is little I can say, there is nothing I can add, I can only ask, where is the United Nations Human Rights Council? Where is Bishop Desmond Tutu? Where are the black organization in the US? Where are the Islamic groups? Where is the moral outrage?!?!?!?

A religious student forced to beg for his Quranic teacher walks alongside cars stuck in traffic as he begs for change and food on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, Saturday, Aug. 25, 2007. The overwhelming majority of Dakar’s child beggars are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam, placing the problem at the complicated intersection of greed and tradition. Over the past two years, the International Organization for Migration has rescued 600 child beggars from Senegal and brought them home to their families in neighboring countries and Senegal’s poor, rural interior. (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)

Chaim