UN expert: slavery still blights Mauritania

 
Cases of slavery still exist in Mauritania despite government's efforts to put end to practice.

 
NOUAKCHOTT - Slavery still blights parts of Mauritania, a senior UN expert said on Tuesday, 28 years after the country abolished the practice.

"Cases of serious slavery still exist in Mauritania. People are subjected to different and very serious kinds of slavery in some rural areas and cities," Gulnara Shahinian, the UN's special rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, told reporters in the capital Nouakchott.

"Slavery is a crime, whether practiced against an group or an individual person," she added.

During her two-week fact-finding mission, Shahinian met with Mauritanian government officials, anti-slavery NGOs and also victims of the slave trade.

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 but it still persists in some parts of the country.

Shaninan said she had seen willingness from the country's government "to put an end to the practice."

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