Senegal

We plan to provide regular information about mobilisation for the Dakar World Social Forum in February 2011. Watch out for more, and in the meantime check out the .

The arrest and conviction of seven Quranic teachers who forced boys trusted to their care to beg is a significant move forward for children's rights in Senegal, Human Rights Watch has said. The men were sentenced on September 8, 2010, marking the first application of a 2005 law outlawing the practice; two more men are scheduled to face the same charges on September 9.

In Senegal many women refuse to take mentally disabled children on public transport; families hide children with mental or neurological disorders, and some parents disown them outright. Such is the stigma of having a child with these widely misunderstood illnesses. "In Senegal people simply regard children with such conditions as 'abnormal', whatever the disability - mental or physical," said Ngor Ndour, a psychologist specializing in mental disorders in children.

The International Council of the World Social Forum and the African Social Forum and the Senegalese Organizing Committee launch a public consultation until September 10th to finalize the thematic axes of the centralized edition of the WSF, to be held in Dakar, Senegal, on February 06-11 2011. This methodological proposal was defined after Mumbai (Maharashtra, India), five years ago.

The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) has called on the Senegalese authorities to put an end to the legal proceedings against Abdou Latif Coulibaly, investigative journalist and Director of Publication of the weekly magazine, La Gazette, who was charged on July 10, 2010 for “concealment of administrative and private documents pertaining to the Senegalese National Lottery (LONASE)” following a complaint of its Managing Director Mr. Baila Wane.

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