In this heartbreaking testimony, M'barka opens up to anti-slavery activists and shares her harrowing experience. She was a slave owned by the family of her master. After decades of servitude, she was finally rescued and freed with the help of NGOs.

M'barka's story is not unique, nor an isolated case. She is one among tens of thousands of men and women who endured slavery, in its old form, in Mauritania. Those were fortunate enough to flee their enslavement. However, many more are still living under the cruelty of their masters.

There are no public or officials statistics of how many individuals are yet enslaved. But as reported by international NGOs and local rights groups, an estimated 10% to 20% of the country's four million people still live in slavery. Mauritania scores 6 out of 167 positions in the Global Slavery Index 2018. In other terms, the country has one of the highest percentage of slaves among its population in the world. Most of them belong to the Haratine ethnic group. They are born slaves and forced to work on their masters' farms or homes with no possibility of freedom, education or pay.

Yes, slavery still exists in the 21st century in Mauritania. If that comes as a surprise, consider how unbelievable it would be if you know that this Northwest African country was the last state in the world to abolish slavery. That happened only thirty-eight years ago. But it was not until 2007, that the Mauritanian government passed a law prohibiting and criminalizing the act of enslavement. Nevertheless, this anti-slavery legislation remains practically a dead letter.

When it comes to understanding why this practice is still alive, the authorities are usually the first to be blamed. They are criticized for their lack of effort and reluctance to enforce the anti-slavery laws. The official denials regarding the existence of slavery worsen their already dubious position. The unresponsive attitude of western countries is also believed to contribute in the persistence of slavery practices. All these factors are regularly suggested as the main reasons behind the current situation. No one can contest that they hold true.

That being said, the roots of this practice lay elsewhere...in the structural racism which is ingrained in the Mauritanian society. Racial discrimination has palpable impact on different levels of the social fabric. In one of its reports published in 2017, the World Bank has warned the international community about the ethno-racial divisions and discriminatory state practices in Mauritania. The financial institution also urged the local authorities to address the slow pace of integration of marginalized groups excluded from social and economic opportunity.

The question that arises now is where has all this racism come from. A number of factors have certainly contributed to the emergence of racial discrimination. Among them, the strong legacy of slavery and the slave trade in the country. In the 17th century, white-skinned Arab-Berbers, from North Africa, came to the region that would become Mauritania and took control of the land. Later, the Arab slave traders started capturing and enslaving dark-skinned people from sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the legacy of this trade is still alive through the term Haratine. It refers to slaves, freed slaves and persons of slave descent. Haratines are the descendants of black ethnic groups that have been enslaved and discriminated for centuries by the majority Arab-berbers, also called white Moors or Beydanes.

In fact, the causal link between the slave trade legacy and racism is not uniquely Mauritanian. Similar cases have been observed on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean. In its classical study "Capitalism and Slavery", Eric Williams wrote that racism which emerged in the New World was a consequence of slavery. Another research conducted by Angela Hanks, Danyelle Solomon and Christian E. Weller has shown that the inequalities that exist today, in the US, between black and white people can be traced back to slavery. They argue that the legacy of this practice has generated structural racism towards Black Americans through school segregation, mass incarceration and job discrimination.

In addition to the slavery legacy and slave trade heritage, religious rhetoric plays a crucial role in emphasizing the racial disparities in Mauritania. The country follows a branch of Islam that preaches submission and slavery. Religious leaders use it to convince the dark-skinned population that God has created them to be slaves, hence their natural place in society is serving their masters. In his study "Paradise Is Under the Feet of Your Master", Khaled Esseissah from Indiana University criticizes the misuse of the religion: "Mauritanian Arab-Berber religious scholars have misinterpreted Islamic texts to justify the enslavement of Africans in Mauritania." He explains that slaveowners have succeeded in convincing the Haratine that it is part of their religious duty to serve their masters without any resistance or opposition. In fact, the misuse of religion has achieved the desired outcome. "We had no choice, as we were born to slave parents, we were slaves through them. For a long time, they made us believe that we were created to live as slaves. That was the religion", a former slave affirms.

Therefore, the colour of the skin along with the slave trade legacy and the religious rhetoric have been used to create racial divisions between the Beydanes and Haratine, resulting in structural racism within the Mauritanian society. Bruce Hall confirms this in his article " The question of 'race' in the pre-colonial southern Sahara". He stresses that the colour terminology and religious knowledge were used as strong tools to generate cultural and racial differences between white-skinned and black-skinned population. According to him, the blackness in the Sahel region is a negative expression that has been linked to slavery. While whiteness has been equated with Arab Islamic knowledge and privilege.

Slaves like M'barka have been convinced, their whole life, of their inferiority in society. Ignorance and lack of information feed the assumption of being "nothing". In fact, most of the slaves are deprived of any form of education. Not by choice, but by imposition. The administration process makes it almost impossible for the Haratine to register. As stated by the FIDH (International Federation for Human Rights), the civil registration centres are often far from some of the Afro-Mauritanian and Haratine communities living in rural areas. The impact of this obstacle can be seen through the major disparities in registration rates in Mauritania. According to UNICEF, only 33% of children under 5 in the poorest families – those of Haratine or Afro-Mauritanian communities - are registered compared to almost 85% of those from the richest households. Therefore, without civil registration, the Haratine children have no access to schooling. The Illiteracy combined with the geography of Mauritania isolate many slaves and make them unaware of a life outside bondage.

Marginalized, abused and deprived of education, the slaves develop a belief of uselessness since their childhood. "Haratine internalized arguments of their masters and accepted slavery as part of the established norms and order of the society", explains Esseissah. The slave's behaviour, thus, shows the symptoms of symbolic violence from the dominant white Beydan group. As a matter of fact, the main components of Bourdieu's theory might be easily perceptible in the slave's attitude. "For a long time they made us believe that we were created to live as slaves", reveals a former slave to Minority Rights Group International. Enslaved individuals end up legitimizing the domination of their white masters.

While many slaves unconsciously accept their enslavement, others are forced to resist freedom out of poverty. According to the United Nations classification system, Mauritania is one of the poorest countries in the world on the Human Development Index. Around 42% of the population lives on the brink of poverty. The economy depends mainly on foreign assistance.

In the face of this alarming economic situation, the Haratines are, by far, the most exposed ethnic group in the country. The poverty rate among this community is extremely high which considerably increases its vulnerability to abuse and exploitation. That may seem a little surprising, but some slaves prefer, by necessity, to stay under servitude. "Descendants of slaves are looked down upon. Slave owners are the rich people of this country. We flee their houses, but when we need work, we go back to them under another form. They make us work like slaves again", a slavery victim admits in 2015 Minority Rights Group International's report about the struggle of Mauritania's Haratine Women.

Not only racism has affected the way in which slaves perceive themselves in the Mauritanian society, but it has also created a hierarchical system dominated by the light-skinned Beydan group. As a result, the Haratine (enslaved or freed) are largely marginalized and excluded from many aspects of economic and social life. "They are the last to benefit from government scholarships abroad, land distributions, and social development programs that target poor communities", Esseissah points out in his study.

A piece of further evidence for this is their absence from almost all the leadership positions. In 2009, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance noted on his mission to Mauritania that the Haratine are "invisible" especially at decision-making levels in government, the military, the police and security forces, as well as in the private sector. Three years later, another study published in "l'Année du Maghreb" has confirmed those findings. Nearly 75% of the ministers in Mauritania since its independence have belonged to the Beydane community, 19% to the Afro- Mauritanian community and only 6% to the Haratine community.

The underrepresentation of Haratine in positions of real power not only reduces their ability to influence policies, but also render their rights and needs invisible. Since the government is mostly, if not exclusively, constituted of members from the white Moors, anti-slavery laws are then rarely applied and enforced. The 2017 U.S. State Department's annual report on trafficking in persons has pointed out that "Mauritania does not fully comply with minimum standards for eliminating the practice and is not making "significant efforts" to do so". The same finding has been highlighted by the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination.

In Mauritania, racism is so deeply ingrained in the minds that little is needed to keep it going and where slavery has been able to thrive. Although the practice persists and resists legislations, the winds of change have been blowing and are getting stronger every day. In the last few years, unusual mobilisations have taken place across the country through different protests and manifestations calling for the end of slavery practices. More and more enslaved people like M'barka start speaking out and claiming their rights for freedom, equality and decent life. Even a former slave, Haby Mint Rabah, ran for parliament in 2018. Her candidacy was a first for the West African country.

Today, the fight against slavery in Mauritania remains a long path full of pitfalls. But it all starts by uprooting racism through education and knowledge.

When M'barka was asked about what would be her next steps after gaining freedom, she replied: " I want to learn. I want my rights and rights for my children".