Jelia Sane to train lawyers in Mauritania on access to justice for victims of slavery
Jelia Sane has been instructed by Minority Rights Group International (MRGI) to provide a training to lawyers in Mauritania on access to justice for victims of slavery. The training will take place in Nouakchott on 5, 6 and 7 March 2019. This is the second time that Jelia will be travelling to Mauritania, having first been instructed by MRGI in February 2018.
Mauritania is widely considered as slavery’s last stronghold. The country officially abolished slavery in 1981, the last in the world to do so, and criminalised it for the first time in 2007. Following reforms in 2012 and 2015, slavery was recognised as a crime against humanity and specialised courts were established for the prosecution of slavery cases. Yet descent-based slavery remains a deeply rooted practice affecting tens of thousands of Haratine (the descendants of black Africans captured during historical slave raids) and Afro-Mauritanians, including children. People born into slavery in Mauritania face a lifetime of exploitation, discrimination and dehumanisation. They are subjected to forced labour and can be bought, sold, inherited and given away as ‘gifts’. Women and girls are routinely sexually abused and raped by slave masters and forced to bear their children. The Mauritanian government denies that slavery still exists and has systematically failed to enforce the law. Anti-slavery campaigners and victims groups seeking justice and reparations regularly face death threats, harassment, arbitrary arrest, torture and detention at the hands of the state authorities.
The 3 day training workshop will address the prohibition of slavery and the rights of victims under international human rights law, African regional human rights mechanisms and UN special procedures. It will be conducted in French, with the cooperation of SOS Esclaves, one of the main anti-slavery NGOs in Mauritania.
You can read more about slavery in Mauritania here and here.
Jelia is a member of the International Law, Immigration and Public Inquiry teams. She is currently based in Greece where she is working as a legal consultant for Safe Passage International, an NGO assisting unaccompanied child refugees in Europe to access safe and legal routes to asylum and family reunion. She maintains her UK practice from a distance and continues to accept instructions. You can read more about Jelia’s practice here.
