House Of Bondage

Slavery is alive and flourishing . Just ask the Haratin

- Marie Solis

 THE MAURITANIAN GOVERNMENT DOESN’T want you to know that 10 to 20 percent of its people are enslaved. Officials don’t want you to think about how the West African country was the last to abolish slavery, in 1981, and didn’t criminalize the practice until just over a decade ago, in 2007. They don’t want you to imagine the conditions of the former slaves, known as Haratin, who now form Mauritania’s lowest caste, living in extreme poverty under a regime that denies them access to work, education and the basic rights that come along with citizenship.

And they certainly don’t want you to see it.