Children in Mauritania are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in indentured and hereditary slavery. (1-4) Children also perform dangerous tasks in agriculture, particularly in herding cattle and goats. (1,5-7) Table 1 provides key indicators on children’s work and education in Mauritania. Data on some of these indicators are not available from the sources used in this report.

Source for primary completion rate: Data from 2019, published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2022. (8) 
Source for all other data: International Labor Organization's analysis of statistics from Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey 2015 (MICS), 2015. (9) 

Based on a review of available information, Table 2 provides an overview of children's work by sector and activity.

† Determined by national law or regulation as hazardous and, as such, relevant to Article 3(d) of ILO C. 182.
‡ Child labor understood as the worst forms of child labor per se under Article 3(a)–(c) of ILO C. 182.

Children in Mauritania, especially from the Haratine ethnic minority, continue to be exploited as slaves and endure slave-like practices, particularly in rural and remote areas of the country. Some children are born into slavery; others are born free but remain in a dependent status and are forced to work with their parents for their former masters in exchange for food, money, and lodging. (3-6,22) Enslaved children herd animals, such as cattle and goats, and perform domestic labor. (3,4,7,10,16,17) Young girls from poor families of Haratine, Wolof, Halpulaar, and Soninké communities are sometimes forced to work as domestic servants in Mauritania's urban areas. (7)

In Mauritania, it is a traditional practice to send children to Koranic teachers (marabouts) to receive an education. However, some Koranic teachers force their students (talibés) to beg on the streets for long hours and to surrender the money they have earned. (4,7,10,14,18,21)

Mauritania requires proof of marriage and a copy of the national identity cards of the parents or caregivers to obtain a birth certificate. This may have prevented children born out of wedlock and many Haratine and Sub-Saharan ethnic minority children, including from families of slave descent, from being registered at birth. (7,19,24,25) Although all families are required to register children for birth certificates, research found that the civil registration process, including obtaining birth certificates, is confusing and time consuming. Moreover, applicants have faced additional hardship due to the closure of registration centers outside the capital and a lack of training for registration center staff. (24-27) In early 2021, Mauritania canceled the requirement for students to possess a national identity card to take part in the national examinations to obtain the Certificate of Primary Education Studies (CEP). However, national identity cards are still required to take exams necessary to enroll in high school. (7,12,16) Because both birth certificates and the CEP are required to enroll in secondary school in Mauritania, many children as young as age 12 cannot access secondary education, making them more vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor. (6,10,11,19,25,28)

To address some of these challenges, the Ministry of Social Affairs, Childhood, and the Family (MASEF); and the National Child Protection Council have established representation in all regions in Mauritania, and work to identify cases of citizens—including children—who are unable to register birth certificates, and provide them with the support needed to complete the registration process. (29) The government also appointed a special committee, headed by a presidential adviser, to review cases of unregistered applicants and facilitate documentation processes for marginalized and vulnerable communities. As part of the committee's efforts to facilitate documentation processes, its members have conducted site visits to civil registration centers during which they have provided support to individuals who have encountered difficulty in the civil registration process. (29,30) During the reporting period, the government continued to collaborate with UNHCR to issue birth certificates to Malian refugee children. (10,14,18,31,32)

In Mauritania, the lack of school infrastructure and limited availability of teachers, especially in rural areas, also impede access to education, which may increase children’s vulnerability to the worst forms of child labor. (5,7) In addition, children from families of slave descent, especially from the Haratine ethnic minority, face barriers to accessing education due to ethnic discrimination. (11,22,33) Furthermore, refugee children may have difficulty accessing education or finding available classrooms, which makes them particularly vulnerable to the worst forms of child labor. (4,7,10,12,34,35)

Mauritania has ratified most key international conventions concerning child labor (Table 3).

The government has established laws and regulations related to child labor (Table 4). However, gaps exist in Mauritania’s legal framework to adequately protect children from the worst forms of child labor, including with the compulsory education age.

* Country has no conscription

In January 2022, the Mauritanian Ministry of Labor and Professional Education (MEFP) enacted a hazardous work list. The list identified 44 types of activities that are prohibited for children, including street vending, domestic work, and stone crushing. (12,37) In addition, in January 2021, the government adopted a new NGO Law (No. 2021-004) to ease NGO registration requirements and move oversight of NGOs operating in Mauritania from the Ministry of the Interior to the Commissariat for Human Rights, Humanitarian Action, and Civil Society Relations. (7,47,48) In October 2021, the government adopted implementation procedures for the law, and in December 2021, the NGO Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) was officially registered by the government. (49) The IRA had been previously blocked from being registered and its members were arrested. (50) Several other human rights NGOs working on non-slavery issues were also officially registered, and have begun to operate officially. (49-51)

The Labor Code allows children ages 12 and older to perform light work as long as it does not impede their school attendance, does not exceed 2 hours per day, and is authorized by the Ministry of Labor. (36) However, the Labor Code does not specify the activities in which light work may be permitted. (52) In addition, children in Mauritania are required to attend school only up to age 14. This standard makes children ages 14 through 16 vulnerable to child labor because they are not required to attend school but are not legally allowed to work. (27,46)

The government has established institutional mechanisms for the enforcement of laws and regulations on child labor (Table 5). However, gaps exist within the operations of enforcement agencies that may hinder adequate enforcement of their child labor laws.

During the reporting period, the Ministry of Interior created the Central Office for the Suppression of Migrant Smuggling and Human Trafficking. This unit is tasked with disrupting irregular migration, and actively searching for trafficking indicators among migrants. (12,49) In November, the National Commission for Human Rights (CNDH) conducted an informational campaign caravan on anti-slavery laws in the northern region of the country in collaboration with the local authorities, the NGO SOS Esclaves, and the UN Human Rights Office. (49)

Labor Law Enforcement

In 2021, labor law enforcement agencies in Mauritania took actions to address child labor (Table 6). However, gaps exist within the operations of the MEFP that may hinder adequate labor law enforcement, including insufficient financial resource allocation.

In 2021, the government hired an additional 161 new labor inspectors. (7) New inspectors receive training on the Labor Code, child labor laws, and on all labor-related conventions the country has ratified. (58) During the reporting period, labor inspectors also received training on child protection issues and on the new List of Hazardous Work Forbidden to Children. (7) Mauritania carried out 570 inspections; this is the first time that these data have been provided for inclusion in this report. However, none of the inspections were carried out in the informal sector, in which child labor is known to occur. (7)

Research found that the MEFP lacked equipment, training, transportation, and funding to conduct inspections, especially in remote locations and in the informal sector, which employs more than 40 percent of the workforce. (5,7,53,59,60) The government did not provide information on its labor law enforcement efforts, including the number of child labor violations found, the number of child labor violations for which penalties were imposed, the number of child labor penalties imposed that were collected, and whether routine inspections were targeted for inclusion in this report. (10)

Labor inspectors prepare reports when they find a labor violation and may include a recommendation for a penalty, but they are not empowered to assess penalties; they then are required to file the reports with the Ministry of Justice (MOJ). The MOJ, in turn, assesses the penalty for the violation. (7,16)

During the reporting period, the MASEF, in coordination with the MEFP and UNICEF, organized roundtables nationwide to sensitize against child labor and promote the role of inspectors in deterring child labor. Also during the reporting period, the Federation of Artisanal Fisheries organized two campaigns in Nouadhibou and Nouakchott to sensitize fishing communities on the importance of protecting children from apprenticeship activities in the fishing sector. (7)

Criminal Law Enforcement

In 2021, criminal law enforcement agencies in Mauritania took actions to address child labor (Table 7). However, gaps exist within the operations of enforcement agencies that may hinder adequate criminal law enforcement, including insufficient investigation and prosecution of criminal cases related to hereditary slavery.

During the reporting period, the UNODC coordinated four 5-day training sessions that covered identifying, investigating, and prosecuting human trafficking cases. Trainings benefited a total of 56 magistrates, 18 gendarmes, 14 police officers, and 14 representatives of civil society. (49) Furthermore, the MOJ established legal aid offices throughout the country, tasked with providing legal assistance to trafficking victims. The legal aid offices are managed by representatives from the local government, MASEF, and the Mauritanian Bar Association. (49) However, efforts made by criminal law enforcement authorities to address the worst forms of child labor, including hereditary slavery, remained inadequate given the magnitude of the problem. (61) Research indicates that some police, prosecutors, and judges do not investigate cases of slavery in response to complaints, and that the government has prosecuted cases as lesser offenses to avoid bringing a slavery case to trial. In some cases, this may be due to corruption, lack of political will to prosecute suspected slaveholders, or misunderstanding of the 2015 Anti-Slavery Law. (7,14,61,62) There are also reports that investigative judges who receive anti-slavery cases unlawfully dismiss cases by civil society organizations representing victims of slavery, and that they may try to pressure victims to drop their cases, accept mediation in lieu of prosecution, or reclassify cases as a lesser crime. (10,15,59,60,63) In addition, there are reports that some cases of slavery are resolved through social mediation rather than through the criminal justice system. (14,21)

During the reporting period, the Anti-Slavery Courts handed down two convictions for slavery-related offenses and processed five cases overall. (7,12) Enforcement authorities, including the Anti-Slavery Courts, lack personnel, funding, and training to adequately coordinate and enforce laws related to the worst forms of child labor. (3,4,11,14,55,57,59,64,65) Slavery victims also encounter obstacles when filing complaints, including pressure from judges to drop their complaints. The government's failure to adequately investigate these cases may be due to the insufficient allocation of resources for prosecutions or to a lack of training for judicial officials. (15,59,60,63) During the reporting period, criminal and anti-slavery courts were closed for several months due to the COVID-19 pandemic, resulting in a decline in total cases processed. (49)

The government did not provide information on the number of investigations, number of violations found, number of prosecutions initiated, number of convictions, or imposed penalties for violations related to the worst forms of child labor for inclusion in this report. (7) Furthermore, research found that there was little to no coordination among enforcement agencies. (15,66)

The government has established mechanisms to coordinate its efforts to address child labor. (Table 8) However, gaps exist that hinder the effective coordination of efforts to address child labor, including a lack of inclusion of all relevant agencies to address all forms of child labor.

During the reporting period, the Commissariat on Human Rights, Humanitarian Action, and Civil Society Relations funded six awareness-raising campaigns on human trafficking in partnership with anti-slavery NGOs such as SOS Esclaves and Flambeau de la Liberté. (49) Between April and July of 2021, the Commissariat also organized 15 workshops with 760 participants to raise awareness and train administrative, judicial, and security authorities. The trainings touched on several criminal law enforcement topics, including Mauritania's legal and institutional framework for combating human trafficking; Mauritania's national commitments to combatting human trafficking; the National Action Plan to Combat Trafficking in Persons (2020–2022); the establishment of the National Authority to Combat Trafficking in Persons and Smuggling of Migrants; and the complaints mechanism of the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights, Humanitarian Action and Relations with Civil Society. (49) In June, the Commissariat organized a roundtable discussion on the application of the anti-slavery law with participants that included UNHCR, the ILO, the MOJ, the CNDH, the General Prosecutor's Office, the Supreme Court, the presidents of specialized anti-slavery criminal courts, and CSO representatives. Recommendations from the sessions included: appointing someone at the MOJ to be a point of contact on all slavery-related cases, as well as more training sessions for those charged with implementing the anti-slavery law. (49) Additionally, the MOJ, the Commissariat on Human Rights, and the ILO created a follow-up committee to ensure that slavery cases were processed and recommendations from the June roundtable were implemented. (49)

From June 9 to 13, the Union for the Republic—President Ghazouani’s ruling political party—held workshops throughout the country that discussed slavery. The workshops not only allowed for open debate on the issue, but they also helped spread awareness about the country’s anti-slavery laws. (49)

The government has established policies related to child labor (Table 9). However, policy gaps exist that hinder efforts to address child labor, including insufficient funding.

While the National Action Plan to Eliminate Child Labor (PANETE-RIM) ended in December 2020, the government and the ILO approved a draft PANETE-RIM II in December 2021, which will replace the original plan. (7) Efforts to implement most of the key policies related to child labor continue to be delayed due to insufficient allocation of resources. (12,15,63,82,83)

Mauritania continues to be a Pathfinder country under Alliance 8.7, an international partnership with 22 member countries, and facilitated by the ILO Secretariat. This involves a commitment toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.7, which calls for the eradication of forced labor, modern slavery, human trafficking, and child labor by 2025. (84) 

In 2021, the government funded and participated in programs that include the goal of eliminating child labor (Table 10). However, gaps exist in these social programs, including the inadequacy of efforts to address the problem in all sectors.

† Program is funded by the Government of Mauritania.

Although Mauritania has social programs that target child labor, the scope of these programs is insufficient to fully address the extent of the problem, especially in agriculture, herding, domestic work, and for children in hereditary and indentured slavery. (7,14,15,53) Moreover, some government officials do not acknowledge that slavery continues to exist. (2,3,21,53,64,89) In addition, the lack of recent data on slavery limits the government’s ability to develop effective social programs to comprehensively address this issue. Existing social programs for formerly enslaved persons and awareness of the national laws on slavery are insufficient. (2)

Based on the reporting above, suggested actions are identified that would advance the elimination of child labor in Mauritania (Table 11).

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3. AFL-CIO. Concerning the failure of the Government of Mauritania to comply with section 104 of the African Growth and Opportunity Act. June 17, 2017. Source on file.
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9. ILO. Analysis of Child Economic Activity and School Attendance Statistics from National Household or Child Labor Surveys. Original data from Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), 2015. Analysis received March 2022. Please see "Children's Work and Education Statistics: Sources and Definitions" in the Reference Materials section of this report.
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