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Here’s more from Disposable People by Kevin Bales. This section was about Mauritania. I’m going to post it in four sections over the next few days. At the end of part four there are a specific things to pray for about human trafficking in Mauritania.

Mauritania

Slavery in Mauritania is driven by a history and culture of poverty and racism and by the apathy and chosen ignorance of foreign countries like France and the United States.

Mauritania is just south of Morocco. Its location makes it a buffer between the Black south and Arab north of Africa—a historically violent conflict. As a result, the country is made up of three primary groups: Arab Moors (or White Moors) who are the ruling class, slaves and ex-slaves call the Haratines, and Afro-Mauritanians from the south who make up about 40% of Mauritania’s population of 2.2 million. The Moors keep definitive population information hidden to hide their numeric weakness. The country is the size of Texas and California combined, but has only 2 million people, the world’s lowest population density. It contains so much dessert that an area the size of Great Britain has no towns or roads and barely any people.

History
The nation was created by European colonists. The French encouraged animosity between people groups to keep them weak, and since Mauritania had little to offer economically, France gave little back. Once it became an independent nation in 1960, Mauritania had no resources and carried a burden of racial tension. Unable to handle dissent the ruling class banned even talking about racial conflict. This suppression of dialogue and freedom has been the pattern ever since.

In 1971 a drought caused much of the population to rush into the cities. Slave labor that had existed historically in rural areas, migrated to the cities and made it possible to build up the cities fast and cheap. In Nouakchott, rural slavery has transferred into urban life, slaves haul water from wells all day or work in small shops where they sleep on the floor. Even now, in the parched city, only 40-45% of the population has running water, so nearly 300,000 people depend on slaves to bring them water every day.

In 1980, Mauritania abolished slavery, saying that “slavery was ended and no longer existed.” This was not carried out by any social changes or government policies. Most slaves were not aware that they were now free. Their legal freedom still hasn’t translated into actual freedom. The legislation also guaranteed compensation to freed slaves, but doesn’t detail how that should be carried out, so judges say it’s not their job to determine it. The most drastic change was that Haratines whose ancestors were freed from slavery in previous generations were no officially classed as ex-slaves, which was a slap in the face to prosperous business owners whose ancestors were freed over 100 years ago. Instead of bringing peace or freedom, exploitation continued and racial tension heightened.

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