Apr 15 2008
Straight to the top
Sometimes freed slaves and their advocates successfully prosecute their former slaveholders. But one woman in Niger is going even further: she’s suing the government.
Last week the BBC reported that Hadijatou Mani, who was sold as a 12-year-old concubine to a master who already had many wives, accuses the Niger government of not enforcing anti-slavery laws throughout the country.
What’s interesting about this case is that it imposes increased accountability on the government. Almost every country in the world outlaws slavery now, and yet there are an estimated 27 million slaves in the world.
It is easy to write a law on a piece of paper.
But if governments don’t make a real, substantial effort to enforce such laws, then complex factors like traditions of inequality and organized crime are not going to yield to a piece of paper.
Human rights groups estimate that there are still 43,000 people living in slavery in Niger.
[…] Goods: In an earlier post I had linked to Christa’s blog about slavery in Mauritania. A more recent post looks at a former slave in Niger who is suing the government for not enforcing anti-slavery laws. […]