What started out historically as a method to train boys in Islamic values and memorization of the Qur’an has turned in parts of West Africa into modern-day child exploitation, trafficking and slavery. Garibou or Talibé boys are a West African phenomenon and are found particularly in population centers in Mali, Senegal, Burkina Faso, or Guinea-Bissau.
The Garibou are boys who have been sent by their parents for training in the Qur’an with a master or marabout. Objectives of this “apprenticeship” include memorization of the entire Qur’an in Arabic (a language not understood by the boys) by the age of 19. By begging daily for food and money (quotas of which must be given to the marabout) the virtues of patience, humility, suffering and good behavior will be developed in the child. During the planting season, children will be hired out to farmers; the marabout receives all financial benefit.
If quotas are not met or memorization not mastered, a child is punished with physical abuse. They live in fear, are prey to sexual abuse from older kids, and are victims of vehicular accidents due to begging directly in the road. Serious and chronic illnesses go untreated.
Child trafficking happens as well, with children being escorted by adults from one country to the other. For instance, in March 2015, two adults from Guinea-Bissau were arrested attempting to traffic 54 children to Dakar, Senegal. At least 100,000 children are affected by this practice. Individual governments, under pressure from religious leaders, fail to enact their own laws or their international obligations, so the deaths of these children go unreported to authorities, though the bodies will be returned to the families.
These boys are deprived of their right to a childhood. If they escape from the control of the marabout, they typically prefer to live on the street, knowing that if they return to their family, they will be taken back to the place of suffering they have known.
LET’S PRAY
- Pray that West African governments would enforce laws that protect the rights and education of these boys.
- Pray that reports of abusive marabouts would be followed up and treated with justice.
- This regional system of Qur’anic training was originally different. Now, it is about financial gain for unscrupulous and false marabouts. Pray that those who exploit children under the guise of religion would be exposed and dealt with justly or that their hearts would be convicted of the evil they have been involved “in the name of Allah”.
- Pray for advocates willing to champion the rights of these children and for centers to multiply that can provide boys fleeing from these abusive situations with shelter, medical care, proper nutrition, love and education.
Post credited to the editors at Worldchristian: visit http://www. worldchristianconcern.org/donate to support mission efforts to reach the unreached for Christ.
