DAKAR, Senegal (AP) – Twelve-year-old Boubacar was picked up from the streets of Senegal’s capital at night by police, along with dozens of other children, in the latest crackdown on begging.
The boy was sent to this West African country by his family in neighboring Guinea to study the Quran at one of the capital’s 1,600 Islamic schools, known as daaras. He is among thousands of students, or talibes, sent out by teachers to beg for money and food. Some schools have been accused of keeping the children in unsafe living conditions and abusing them.
“I want to return to my family,” Boubacar said at a transit center for street children.
More than 500 such children have been taken from Dakar’s streets in the past two months. President Macky Sall announced the crackdown in June and said the government will prosecute, fine and jail parents or Quranic teachers, known as marabouts, who are found guilty of abuses.
“A child’s place is not in the streets … the children have rights to learn, and to be in good health,” said Maimouna Balde, the director of Centre Ginddi, the main government transit center. On a hot summer day, dozens of children played games in a room and watched TV as authorities worked to find their families.