UN human rights experts call on Mali to end slavery

September 8, 2020.  Two UN human rights experts called on authorities in Mali to end slavery once and for all after 4 men regarded as born into slavery were beaten to death and an 80-year-old woman and two other people were seriously injured last week.

 

One of the dead men, a 69-year-old considered a slave, had won a court ruling against the village imam over farmland. Some members of the community objected to the judge’s decision, surrounded the houses of the so-called slaves and savagely beat them. The four dead men ranged in age from 42 to 72; an elderly woman and a married couple, aged 30 and 44, were hospitalised.

The two UN human rights experts are Alioune Tine, the UN independent expert on the situation of human rights in Mali, and Tomoya Obokata, the Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery,