NOUAKCHOTT (Reuters) - Mauritania's parliament has passed a law making slavery a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison after years of lobbying by rights groups in the Saharan Islamic state.
"Parliamentary deputies have passed a law which criminalizes and sets sanctions against the practice of slavery," Messaoud Ould Boulkheir, speaker of the National Assembly and himself a descendant of freed slaves, said in a statement on Thursday.
Although banned by decree since 1981, rights groups say hundreds of thousands of Mauritanians are still enslaved, the highest proportion in a population anywhere in the world.
Herding camels or goats in the sun-blasted dunes of the Sahara, or serving hot mint tea to guests in the richly carpeted villas of the capital Nouakchott, slaves are passed on as family chattels from generation to generation.
Some of the light-skinned elite which has long ruled the former French colony straddling black and Arab West Africa deny slavery exists. But campaigners say the master-slave relationship is branded into the minds of all Mauritanians.
Questions about slavery have in the past drawn anger, mistrust or silence leading to a cloak of fear and secrecy which has made it difficult to bring cases of slavery to light, let alone to court.
(More)
http://www.reuters.com/article/world...89868220070809