‘It’s not about the Qur’an, it’s about the money’: how boys of five are forced to beg on Senegal’s streets

An old west African practice of sending children away to study is being used as a cover for trafficking, say human rights groups In a bare, gloomy room on the beachfront at Saint-Louis, in the north-west of Senegal, dozens of young boys sit on a concrete floor chanting verses from the Qur’an, surrounded by fishing boats and piles of rubbish. It is early in the morning but the children have already been up for hours, not to study but to walk the streets begging for food and money. Every day, ...

By Pete Pattisson in Saint-Louis