Boy Flees Islamic School That Makes Beggars of African Kids
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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.
{snip}
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.
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.
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.
{snip}
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.
“If you do the math, you’ll find that these people are earning more than a government functionary,” said Souleymane Bachir Diagne, an Islamic scholar at Columbia University. “It’s why the phenomenon is so hard to eradicate.”
Middle men trawl for children as far afield as the dunes of Mauritania and the grass-covered huts of Mali. It’s become a booming, regional trade that ensnares children as young as 2, who don’t know the name of their village or how to return home.
{snip}
But their earnings far exceed his rent of $50. If the boys meet their quotas, they bring in around $650 a month in a nation where the average person earns $150.
Buwaro expects the children to suffer to learn the Quran, just as he did at the hands of his teacher.
{snip}
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.
{snip}
(Posted on April 22, 2008)
Comments
“Most of the boys—90 percent, the study found—are sent out to beg under the cover of Islam.”
Tragic.
Posted by Unemployed WASP at 6:25 PM on April 22
If this is how the treat their co-religionists, one can imagine how they treat us “infidel dogs” when they have the opportunity.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 7:16 PM on April 22
They have to beg for like 2 weeks or something when they come of age. Once I was stopped by a Muslim beggar before I knew this. When I informed him about a local shelter, he got pissed. If you ask me, he wasnt very good at being humble. Another time, when working with an African Muslim, I apologized to him saying something like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know that”, and because I had actually explained/made an excuse for what I had done, along with apology, he seemed offended/offensive and disdainful about my apology, which seemed to me, pretty rude/willfully malevolent. Being the white-guilt infected guy I am, I made no notice of the issue. I suppose I was supposed to feel even more guilt. When you work with non-whites as equals, you quickly learn you are not. In case you’d get any ideas to think otherwise, the diversity policies are always there to remind you.
Posted by I should have taken the blue pill. . . at 7:30 PM on April 22
The best part of this article was that after the abused kid finally returned home with his tales of torture, his father sent two more of Coli’s brothers to live with the same Islamic teacher. These articles always try to make it sound like the poorest Africans are duped into giving their children to human traffickers, but how does that explain the actions of Coli’s father?? The truth is that they don’t want their own children - they are only too happy to get rid of them.
Posted by Jill at 7:32 PM on April 22
What else is new. Islam has been enslaving blacks (not to mention anyone else too weak to resist them) since Mohammed.
Posted by at 7:55 PM on April 22
What’s the big deal, here? African Bantus have been begging for handouts ever since Moses wore short pants.
Posted by Soprano Fan at 9:00 PM on April 22
Sounds just like an IRS audit…
Posted by Delano Man at 9:54 PM on April 22
Of course, this is just one of an infinite number of reasons why Africa is so poor: begging is seen as a more honorable way to make a “living” than doing productive work. The problem is that those they are begging of are just as destitute as they are. When everyone is a beggar, then begging loses whatever small value it had to begin with.
Posted by Tim in Indiana at 12:09 AM on April 23
“Of course, this is just one of an infinite number of reasons why Africa is so poor: begging is seen as a more honorable way to make a “living” than doing productive work”
African’s are very sharing people. At least, among African’s. I suppose everyone in this world is morally superior to working class whites.
Posted by I should have taken the blue pill. . . at 1:01 AM on April 23
Why not eliminate BEGGING by doing what so many other blacks have been taught to do by liberals and their churches, get a real All American Job by signing up for Welfare and Food Stamps so that the (devils) can take care of you the way they always have?
Posted by T Rexx at 9:55 AM on April 23
The other evening viewing the UK tv archaeology program Time Team featuring a dig in search of Liverpool’s first dock, it was no surpise when the topic of slavery eventually surfaced. ”The legacy of slavery is everywhere” said one local historian to presenter Tony Robinson ”even Penny Lanes” [the street made famous in the Beatles song of the same name] ”was named after Captain Penny who was master of a slave ship” Robinson [Baldrick in the tv series Blackaddder] looked dutifully reverent, eerily reminiscent of his character Baldrick, Blackadder’s peasant/dogsbody/servant.
Well, the legacy of slavery may be everywhere in the white western world with a quick surf of the net revealing numerous web sites, blogs & museums all dedicated to the terrible scourge of white slavery. But a further search to find similar sites dedicated to the chronologically much longer black on black & arab on black slavery came up blank [except for a web site for a ‘visit the birthplace of [fictional Roots character] Kunta Kinte’ which surely proves that some blacks are as every bit as dumb as white liberals are.
No, it seems that blacks aren’t in the least interested in museums & web sites on black on black & arab on black slavery. [Hey, how about a Chief so-and-so Trail through the African jungle to the coast reminiscent of the way Africans from time immemorial & still to the present day have sold each other into slavery for profit. Surely a franchise opportunity for some enterprising black. Are you listening Big Al?] No, they are only interested in taking the heat of their own guilty selves by demonising whites. Or maybe we just hand over too many goodies too goddam easily to the absent-minded brothers.
Posted by dr dee's brainwashing elixir at 12:20 PM on April 24