Chained to tradition

被“传统”束缚着

Thousands of children are abused in Senegal’s religious schools

塞内加尔数千名儿童在ZJ学校受到ND

Their parents sent them to learn the Koran. Their teachers beat and starve them

他们的父母送他们去学习GLJ。他们的老师殴打他们，令他们挨饿

 

MBAR LIFTS up his trousers and points at the marks where the chains wore his skin away. He was 11 when his father sent him from his village to a religious school on the outskirts of Senegal’s holy city of Touba. His teacher made him recite passages from the Koran in the morning. Then Mbar (not his real name) was sent out to the streets to beg for money for his master until night fell. If he misbehaved, he was beaten or starved.

MBAR提起他的裤子，指着他皮肤上被链子磨掉的痕迹。他11岁时，父亲把他从村里送到塞内加尔圣城图巴郊区的一所ZJ学校。他的老师让他早晨背诵《GLJ》中的段落。然后Mbar(不是他的真名)被送到街上为他的主人讨钱，直到夜幕降临。如果他行为不端，就会挨打或挨饿。

 

After two years Mbar ran home. But his father sent him to another school. This time he was not made to beg. Instead, he was chained to a wall. “I couldn’t move. They used to bring me a bucket to pee in,” says Mbar, in a cracked voice.

两年后，Mbar跑回家。但是他的父亲送他去了另一所学校。这一次，他不是被迫乞讨的。相反，他被拴在墙上。“我动弹不得。他们过去常常给我带一个水桶来小便，”Mbar用沙哑的声音说。

词汇

Cracked/声音嘶哑的

Senegal is one of Africa’s more successful countries. It is peaceful. Its government functions relatively well and the economy is growing at 7% a year. But along the old boulevards of Dakar, the capital, thousands of talibé—the “seekers” attending nearby religious schools—beg for change. Some boys are as young as four. Many families send their sons to such schools, or daaras, where they memorise the Koran. Some do so for religious reasons but, for many, daaras offer the only opportunity for children to get a basic education.

塞内加尔是非洲比较成功的国家之一。它是和平的。ZF运行相对良好，经济以每年7%的速度增长。但是在首都达喀尔的老林荫大道上，成千上万的TLB——在附近ZJ学校上学的“寻求者”——乞求改变。有些男孩才四岁。许多家庭把他们的儿子送到这样的学校，或daara，在那里他们学习GLJ。有些人这样做是出于ZJ原因，但对许多人来说，daara为孩子们提供了接受基础教育的唯一机会。

词汇

Boulevard/林荫大道；大马路

Daara/

 

Many marabouts, or religious teachers, respect children’s rights. And begging has long been accepted as a way of teaching talibés humility and funding their education.

许多马约人或ZJ教师尊重儿童的权利。长期以来，乞讨一直被认为是教导TLB谦卑和资助他们教育的一种方式。

But the system is almost completely unregulated, and rackets flourish. A new report by PPDH, a coalition of Senegalese rights groups, and Human Rights Watch in New York, documents some of the abuse suffered by the estimated 100,000 children who are forced to beg.

但这一体系几乎完全不受监管，由此衍生的诈骗“生意兴隆”。由塞内加尔人权团体联盟PPDH和纽约人权观察组织联合发布的一份新报告记录了大约10万名被迫乞讨的儿童所遭受的ND情况。

词汇

Racket/诈骗；勒索

Isolated and far from home, dozens of boys sleep in filthy rooms. They are given just enough food to survive. If they fail to meet their begging quota of about $1 per day, or try to escape, they may be beaten, starved or chained for weeks at a time. Many are sexually abused. According to a psychologist at Samu Social, a centre working with boys in Dakar, many children try to kill themselves or hurt themselves deliberately so they will need medical attention and can get out of the daaras. From 2017 to 2018, researchers recorded at least 16 incidents in which children died from beatings, neglect or poor conditions.

由于与世隔绝，离家很远，几十个男孩睡在肮脏的房间里。它们的食物只够生存。如果他们不能达到每天1美元的乞讨配额，或者试图逃跑，他们可能会挨打、挨饿或被链子锁上几个星期。许多人遭受性ND。据达喀尔一个与男孩合作的中心Samu Social的一位心理学家说，许多孩子试图自杀或故意伤害自己，这样他们就需要医疗照顾，可以离开daaras。从2017年到2018年，研究人员记录了至少16起儿童死于殴打、忽视或恶劣环境的事件。

词汇

Filthy/肮脏的；污秽的

Quota/配额；定额

 

Suffer the little children

让孩子们受苦

Most of the boys come from farms or villages in Senegal, but some are also trafficked from the Gambia, Guinea Bissau and Mali. Agents go to rural areas and promise parents that the boys will study at the best religious schools in Senegal. The costs for the traffickers are minimal. They pay border guards about $1 a child to smuggle them in from Gambia, says Issa Kouyaté, who runs Maison de la Gare, a talibé shelter in Saint-Louis, a city in northern Senegal.

大多数男孩来自塞内加尔的农场或村庄，但也有一些是从冈比亚、几内亚比绍和马里走私来的。中介机构前往农村地区，向父母承诺，这些男孩将在塞内加尔最好的ZJ学校学习（学校学生来源1）。人口贩子的成本是最低的。在塞内加尔北部城市圣路易经营着一家名为Maison de la Gare的TLB庇护所的Issa Kouyate说，他们大约按每个小孩1美元付给边境警卫，以方便让他们将孩子们从冈比亚偷运进来（学校学生来源2）。

词汇

Trafficked/这里引申为“走私”

Smuggle/走私；偷运

Trafficker/贩子；商人；从事违法勾当者

Government officials have repeatedly pledged to deal with the problem, but their attempts have been half-hearted. The daaras are powerful and the marabouts can influence the way people vote in elections. Politicians compete for their support.

ZF官员多次承诺要解决这个问题，但他们的努力都是半心半意的。daara势力强大，一些隐士可以影响人们在选举中投票的方式。政客们竞相争取他们的支持。

词汇

Marabout/  隐士（这里应该指代政客，在当地成为Marabout）；伊斯兰教隐士的坟

In 2013 a law setting minimum standards for daaras was drafted. It has yet to be passed by parliament. In 2016 President Macky Sall spoke about taking the children off the streets and jailing those who forced them to beg. But official figures show that only about 300 children were helped in 2018. Children often beg openly outside police stations. The marabouts who abuse them rarely face justice.

2013年，ZF制定了针对daara最低标准的法律。该法案尚未在议会获得通过。2016年，总统麦基·萨尔(Macky Sall)谈到要把孩子们从街头带走，并把那些强迫他们乞讨的人关进监狱。但官方数据显示，2018年只有大约300名儿童得到帮助。孩子们经常在警察局外面公开乞讨。滥用职权的马约人很少会受到法律的制裁。

 

All this may be storing up trouble for Senegal. “You have a large population of impoverished, abused children, isolated away from their families. I can’t think of a more perfect target population for criminals,” says Jeffrey Bawa of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, a UN agency, adding that the boys were also likely to be future targets for jihadist recruiters.

所有这些都可能给塞内加尔带来麻烦。“这里有大量贫困、受ND的儿童，他们与家人隔绝。我想不出比这更适合罪犯的目标人群了。” 联合国DP和犯罪办公室的杰弗里·巴瓦说道，他补充说，这些男孩将来也可能成为SZ组织招募人员的目标。

词汇

Impoverished/穷困的

Jihadist/SZ主义者

Mbar was chained to the wall for a month. An older, stronger boy kept the keys for the chains in his robe and disciplined the children when the marabout was away. One night he left his robe on the floor near Mbar, who found the keys and unlocked himself from the wall. He couldn’t find the key for the chains around his ankles but it was enough. He jumped out of the window. Strangers helped him out of his chains and took him to a shelter in Dakar. After almost a year of eating good food, he is beginning to grow again and dreams of becoming a footballer.

Mbar被锁在墙上一个月。一个更大、更强壮的男孩把钥匙放在袍子里，当隐士不在时，他就管教孩子们。一天晚上，他把长袍落在Mbar附近的地板上，Mbar发现了钥匙，从墙上打开了锁。他找不到脚镣的钥匙，但这已经足够了。他从窗户跳了出去。陌生人帮助他挣脱枷锁，把他带到达喀尔的一个避难所。在吃了将近一年的美食之后，他开始重新成长，并梦想成为一名足球运动员。