Child Labor
Sahel region of Niger, Niger
A local Niger tribal chief + the nation of Niger! Some information about the man from what is known about the victim: "She was born in 1984. As the daughter of a slave, she inherited her mother’s servile status. At the age of 12 years, she was sold by a representative of her mother’s owner for the sum of 240000CFA (equivalent to $US 400). Her new master had four wives and seven other ‘sadaka’ (female slaves). She was raped at the age of 13 years and subjected to constant sexual harassment and abuse thereafter. She bore three children, one of whom died. She was beaten, forced to endure harsh labour seven days a week without remuneration or vacation. She lived on a daily diet of insults and degradation by her master who reminded her constantly that she was a slave. She described how she was treated ‘like a goat’. On several occasions she tried to escape and was severely punished. In 2005, her master decided to ‘liberate’ Hadijatou in order to regularise his relationship with her and make her one of his wives. He duly provided her with a ‘liberation certificate’, later presented to the Court, which stated that ‘I, El Hadj Souleymane Naroua have liberated Mme Hadijatou Koreau on this day 18 August and she is now free and is no-one’s slave.’ The certificate was signed by ‘the chef du village’, ‘the master’ and the ‘beneficiary’. Once she received her ‘liberation certificate’, Hadijatou left and refused to marry her former master. This provoked two parallel lines of legal cases in Nigerçher attempts to secure recognition of her right to be free, and her prosecution, at her former master’s instigation, for bigamy. When Hadijatou challenged the verdict, (that she was married to her former master) before the Supreme Court, the highest court of Niger acknowledged that she was a slave, but failed to condemn this as unlawful or treat it as determinative of the question whether she was obliged to live with her former master. Thus, the state of Niger did not protect her and was consequently charged with protecting slavery.
2010