The law prohibits all forms of forced or compulsory labor, including by children. It also criminalizes the practice of slavery, which includes forced labor and child labor, and imposes penalties both on government officials who do not take action on reported cases and on those who benefit from contracting forced labor. Although the government continues its action toward ending slavery, its efforts to enforce the 2015 antislavery law were considered inadequate.
Tadamoun, the government agency charged with combating the “vestiges” of slavery, received 750 million ouguiyas ($21.1 million) of public funding to underwrite infrastructure and education programs to improve opportunities primarily for the benefit of the Haratine community. Some national and international NGOs criticized Tadamoun for not targeting its funding toward the Haratine community and for not more directly confronting cases of slavery in the country, such as not submitting criminal claims on behalf of slavery victims. Other than Tadamoun, the only entities that can legally file criminal cases on behalf of former slaves are legally registered human rights associations that have been operating for five years. The government continued to prevent the registration of antislavery organizations and associations that work for the promotion and protection of human rights of the Haratine community and former slave groups that would have been able to submit complaints once their five-year wait had passed.
The IRA, which is the most active organization on fighting slavery in the country, was prevented from registering since its creation in 2008. The lack of registration for the IRA and other human rights NGOs, as well as the ensuing inability to file complaints on behalf of victims, was a contributing factor to the underutilization of the Specialized Antislavery Courts.
In March the Nouadhibou Specialized Antislavery Court adjudicated its first two cases by convicting and sentencing three slaveholders, imposing stronger penalties than those in previous slavery cases. A woman was convicted of enslaving three sisters in Nouadhibou and was sentenced to 10 years’ imprisonment. The woman was released two months later due to her age and health. In a separate case, a man and his son were sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment for enslaving an entire family in Bir Moghrein, although at the time of the verdict, the man was deceased and his son was convicted in absentia after fleeing the country.
In April the Nouakchott Antislavery Court sentenced two defendants to one year in prison and 25,275 ouguiyas ($710) fines for the crime of libeling with slavery in two separate cases. The third case, in which the defendant was accused of slavery, was postponed pending the decision of the appeals court.
Slavery and slavery-like practices, which typically flowed from ancestral master-slave relationships and involved both adults and children, continued throughout the year. Although reliable data on the total number of slaves did not exist and the government maintained there was no slavery, local and international experts agreed hereditary slavery and slavery-like conditions continued to affect a significant portion of the population in both rural and urban settings. Enslaved persons suffered from traditional chattel slavery, including forced labor and forced sexual exploitation. Human rights groups reported that masters persuaded persons in slavery and slave-like relationships to deny such exploitative relationships to human rights activists.
In 2015 the government asked the International Labor Organization (ILO) for a program to assess the scope of forced labor in the country. The ILO launched the program in 2015, but at year’s end, the government had not authorized the start of a population survey.
Former slaves and their descendants remained in a dependent status with their former slave owners in part due to cultural tradition and a lack of marketable skills, poverty, and persistent drought. Some former slaves and descendants of slaves were forced or had no other viable option than to work for their old masters in exchange for some combination of lodging, food, and medical care. Some former slaves reportedly continued to work for their former masters or others under exploitative conditions to retain access to land that they traditionally farmed. Although the law provides for distribution of land to the landless, including to former slaves, authorities rarely enforced the law.
Former slaves in subservient circumstances were also vulnerable to mistreatment. Women with children faced particular difficulties. Because they were particularly vulnerable in society and lacked the resources to live independently from their former masters, they could be compelled to remain in a condition of servitude, performing domestic duties, tending fields, or herding animals without remuneration.
Both NGO observers and government officials suggested that deeply embedded psychological, religious, and tribal bonds made it difficult for many individuals whose ancestors had been slaves for generations to break their bonds with former masters or their tribes. Some persons continued to link themselves to former masters because they believed their slave status had been divinely ordained or feared religious punishment if that bond was broken. Former slaves were often subjected to social discrimination and limited to performing manual labor in markets, ports, and airports.
Slavery and dependency of former slaves occurred primarily in areas where educational levels were generally low or a barter economy still prevailed, and in urban centers, including Nouakchott. The practices commonly occurred where there was a need for workers to herd livestock, tend fields, and do other manual or household labor.
Forced labor also occurred in urban centers where young children, often girls, were retained as unpaid domestic servants (see section 7.c.).
Also see the Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report at www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/.