Slavery In Mauritania

EDM number 1067 in 2015-16, proposed by Mark Durkan on 03/02/2016.
Categorised under the topics of Africa and Human rights.

That this House notes that Mauritania consistently ranks among the worst countries in slavery indexes with between four and 20 per cent of the population living as slaves, most of them women from the Haratin ethnic group, and with slave status often being passed between generations; further notes that purported anti-slavery legislation in 2007 has not changed the layers of civil exclusion, social degradation and economic exploitation, which Mauritanian authorities pass off as what it calls the last vestiges of slavery; deplores the lack of progress made by the Mauritanian government in eradicating slavery and addressing the growing reprisals against anti-slavery human rights defenders, including the 2013 Human Rights Prize Laureate and the 2014 residential runner-up, Biram Dah Abeid; contrasts the Mauritanian government's failure to hold slave-owners to account with the ongoing imprisonment of many anti-slavery activists; requests that the Government investigates reports of domestic workers being trafficked from Mauritania to Saudi Arabia; urges the Government to press the Mauritanian government to uphold its international human rights obligations to eradicate slavery and protect human rights defenders; and encourages the Secretary of State for International Development to work closely with international partners such as Anti-Slavery International and to allocate funds to support civil society programmes to combat slavery and broader multilateral efforts relating to political reform, good governance and human rights.

This motion has been signed by a total of 40 MPs.