Slavery still exists in Mauritania By Pascal Fletcher Wed Mar 21, 3:22 PM ET
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"It's like having sheep or goats. If a woman is a slave, her descendants are slaves," said Boubacar Messaoud, who was born a slave and is now his country's leading anti-slavery campaigner.
He says a 1981 decree outlawing slavery is a dead letter and slavery is alive in Mauritania, with all its manifestations of non-paid work, punishment, forced sex and other abuses.
Mauritania's military rulers, who are handing over to civilian rule in democratic elections, shy away from discussing the issue and prefer to talk of "vestiges of slavery."
Some members of the light-skinned elite which has traditionally ruled the country deny slavery exists at all. Questions about it can draw anger, mistrust and silence.
But anti-slavery campaigners say the master-slave relationship and its social repercussions are branded into the minds of all Mauritanians, just as class-consciousness still haunts social discourse in Britain and other European states.
"There is slavery in our country, in all of our society. You need laws to eliminate it. The fact people try to hide what exists just complicates things," said Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, a black Mauritanian and descendant of slaves.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070321/lf_nm/slavery_mauritania_dc