begging in several countries, these efforts have not always had significant impact: the phenomenon of forced begging has been eradicated in Gambia, but in neighbouring Senegal it continues despite widespread condemnation from inside and outside the country.263 In Senegal, centres housing children in difficulty note that they are required to obtain a guardianship order (ordonnance de garde) from the children’s court (tribunal pour enfants), within one week of a child coming into their care, which requires first of all that a birth certificate and legal identity be established for the child. These rules are not applied, however, to the enfants talibés in the daaras (Koranic schools), who are allowed to remain in the custody of the marabouts without any legal authority. While such centres do not intervene in the daaras, it does happen that children flee abuses they suffer there, and in that context the formally regulated children’s centres often face difficulty in establishing papers for the boys concerned.264 4.8.4. Child wives of “servile” origin and their children Across the Sahel region, historical systems of slavery and caste discrimination persist in contemporary forms, perhaps most of all in Mauritania.265 In Niger, the anti-slavery group Timidria has reported on the practice of men taking additional wives beyond the four permitted in Islam, provided those additional wives are of “servile” origin. These women, known as wahayu (singular wahaya), are bought and sold, including between Niger and Nigeria, in Niger especially in the Tahoua region.266 Typically they are sold even before puberty, and may remain in servitude their entire lives. Timidria assisted one woman, Hadidjatou Mani Koraou, who was imprisoned simply for marrying the man of her choice after being freed by her “master” (who wished to marry her legally himself), to bring a landmark successful case to the ECOWAS Court of Justice.267 But many others remain hidden. Women who are “additional wives” in the wahaya system are usually completely undocumented, crossing borders (where they do so) without any identity papers; their children, who, in Niger, are not regarded as legitimate children of the “master” and remain as domestic servants to the family (and if girls may themselves be sold as wahayu), are also likely to be unregistered at birth and undocumented thereafter.268 263 In Senegal, it is estimated that there are tens of thousands of children living in Koranic schools, perhaps as many as 100,000. In Nigeria, the Ministerial Committee on Madrasah Education estimated in 2010 that there were about 9.5 million almajiris. See, « Sur le dos des enfants » Mendicité forcée et autres mauvais traitements à l’encontre des talibés au Sénégal, Human Rights Watch, April 2010 ; Time for Change: A call for urgent action to end the forced child begging of talibés in Senegal, Anti-Slavery International, 2011 ; International Labour Organization, UNICEF, World Bank, Enfants mendicants dans la region de Dakar, Understanding Children’s Work Project Working Paper Series, 2007; US Department of Labour, 2012 Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor; National Framework for the Development and Integration of Almajiri Education into UBE Scheme, Nigerian Universal Basic Education Commission, 2010. 264 Interviews, Dakar and Ziguinchor, May 2014. 265 See, for example, the information at the website of Anti-Slavery International, http://www.antislavery.org/english/slavery_today/descent_based_slavery/slavery_in_mauritania.aspx, and at SOS Esclaves, Mauritania, http://www.sosesclaves.org/, last accessed 04 July 2014. 266 Abdelkader, Galy Kadir and Moussa Zangaou, Wahaya: Domestic and sexual slavery in Niger, Timidria and Anti-Slavery International, 2012. 267 Hadidjatou Mani Koraou vs. Republic of Niger, ECOWAS Court of Justice, Arrete ECW/CCJ/JUD/06/08, 27 October 2008; see also Helen Duffy, “Hadijatou Mani Koraou v Niger: Slavery Unveiled by the ECOWAS Court”, Human Rights Law Review, 2009, Vol.9, No.1, pp.151-170.. 268 Interview, Habibou Ibrahim, President Timidria, Niamey, May 2014. In Nigeria, however, the children may be regarded as legitimate, and inherit property (or even ruling titles). 79