The attention of most human rights organizations is focused on the existence of slavery as a real practice. Most human rights activists think that it still exists indeed and that a wide base of the society is still suffering from under different forms.

Boubaker Ould Massoud, head of SOS Slaves, even accuses the State of concealing slave owners and he considers that the State’s denial of the existence of slavery as a practice is actually discredited by the reality.

On the other hand, The Government of Ould Abdel Aziz established a solidarity agency to combat the remnants of slavery and it is standing firmly on recognizing the existence of actual remnants hindering the community development without acknowledging that slavery still exists. The State spent billions on projects to eradicate the remnants of slavery. According to the presentation made by Mr. Hamdi Ould Mahjoub, director of the Solidarity agency, his agency toured the whole country from north to south and from west to east, established dozens of schools and health centers, and donated funds to slavery victims from the most vulnerable categories to develop projects. This presentation was given during the sessions of an evaluation seminar on the implementation of a roadmap in order to eradicate the modern form of slavery.

In addition to the agency, the State also formed a ministerial committee to study the situation and to provide radical solutions for the problems at hand experienced by this category legally, socially and economically while considering that what the agency is performing is only a band-aid solution until the problem is drastically solved on the long term.

Despite all of the efforts made,SidiOuldZein, the former Minister of Justice, refused, as a reply to question asked by Dune Voices, to recognize that slavery is actually practiced considering that only its effects are negatively reflected on people’s life. Our interviewee emphasized that the State will punish anyone who is found to be involved in the enslavement of any citizen.

Dune Voices visited Oum El-Kheir, a fifty-year old woman living in a cottage in the far south of the city of Nouakchott in Al-tarhil neighborhood. She told us about her story with slavery and said: “I lived in one of the northern villages as a slave for a family; they were torturing me and hitting me with or without a reason”. She then added: “I have been looking after their sheep since my childhood”. Oum El-Kheir has five children and she does not know any of their fathers. Our interlocutor told us that the family rejected a man who offered to marry her and that the sons in the family were raping her and she bore their children. Oum El-Kheir also accused the family of killing her daughter; they obliged her to go look after the sheep and to leave her very young baby behind and when she came back in the evening, she found the baby dead where she left it in the morning.

Oum El-Kheir said that when the family felt that the State campaigns, under the former president Sidi Ould Cheikh Abdullah, were investigating slavery cases and bringing the perpetrators to justice, they got rid of her by handing her over to one of her relatives, a retired colonel. She, then, added: “My life with him was the beginning of another misery”as she accused him of raping her eldest daughter repeatedly before her eyes. After years of what Oum El-Khir refers to as slavery and torture, her brother brought her case to human rights organizations, that rescued her from the situation she was enduring. Oum El-Kheir appeals the State to give her justice and hold the people who abused her throughout her life accountable.

In order to get a response from the other party, we tried to contact the retired colonel to respond to the accusations made by the woman. We were able to reach his daughter, who refused to talk about the subject and denied that she even knew the woman called Oum El-Kheir while considering that this whole case was targeting them to tarnish the image of her father. The daughter also stressed that they took the decision as a family to refuse to talk about the issue.

Jomaa, a member of the Slaves committee and the person directly responsible for the follow-up of the living conditions of these victims, said that the State had promised to build houses for these victims and gave away a plot of land to Oum El-Kheir among other similar cases.

Not far from where Oum El-Khir lives, we find Chada Bent Imbrik, accompanied by her brother , a woman in her forties, who came from one of the Tiris Zemmour valleys also running away from the shackles of slavery. Her bother, she said, was the savior of his family as he first escaped ten years ago and had fought for a long time to free his sister Chada and her children from the grip of their masters.

Chadasaid: “My mother, my children and I were subject to torture by a person who was enslaving us even though we were serving him and doing laborious work for him. And now, we demand that the people who abused us are held accountable.”

According to the head of SOS Slaves, such cases among others were brought to the courts as complaints and lawsuits but they all remained pending.He then added: “ Among the dozens of cases brought to court, only one of them was ruled in favor of the victim with a reservation on the level of punishment compared to the gravity of the crime. They only reached a verdict in this case because the defendant had no social influence and thus he was held accountable.

Ould Messoud considered that “had the committee not closely followed the execution of the sentence, they would have released the defendant”.

Mr. Al-Aid Ould Mohamed, the lawyer of the association said that since the first law that incriminated slavery was issued in 2007, only one person was convicted of practicing slavery out of dozens of cases.

He then added that in 2011, two suspects were convicted of slavery but the sentences were not enforceable. The lawyer also said that in Mauritania, there is no prisoner charged with slavery while there are people who are enslaved.

Regarding the case of Oum El-Khir, the lawyer Al-Aid Ould Mohamed said: “The case was presented before the public prosecutor in 2010 in the city of Atar and I travelled repeatedly to see him and to program the decision concerning the case and I last visited him in 2014. I asked the public prosecutor to brief us on the decision he made regarding this case, but there was nothing new in the matter and I find that this is against the law since the law makes it imperative to take measures for the case at hand.”

Regarding Chada and her brother, the lawyer added that the public prosecutor in Zouerate arrested the suspects for a few days and then released them and the case did not advance further after that.

The National Assembly ratified on August 12, 2015 a new law that negates and replaces the slavery criminalization law, which punished practicing slavery and which was issued in September 2007. This new law was deemed by the government to be consistent with the new amendments to the constitution. This law considered that slavery is a crime against humanity. The new law added three amendments, according to the former Minister of Justice Sidi Ould Zein. First, the practice of slavery was categorized as a crime. Second, the level of punishment for the practice of slavery was increased. Finally, courts specializing in slavery-related trials are going to be established across the governorates.

As a reaction, the head of SOS Slaves organization expressed his relief about the new law while accusing the courts of not enforcing the law and demanded to reform the judicial institutions before enacting laws. He stressed that the judicial institutions collude with landowners and those who practise slavery thus defying the law.