Thursday
Aug232012
Mauritania Feature: A Country Shackled by Slavery? (Mark)
Thursday, August 23, 2012 at 12:35
A CNN report from March 2012
In 1981 Mauritania became the last country to abolish slavery, although it was only criminalised in 2007. Officials repeatedly denied it existed and refused to talk to the Guardian about slavery. But activists and former slaves speak of a centuries-old practice, a relic of the trans-Sahara slave trade when Arabic-speaking Moors raided African villages, flourishing in remote outposts of this vast desert country.