Today Human Rights Watch issued a report that urges the Senegalese government to more closely regulate religious schools. Instead of learning, the group has found that at least 100 religious schools send students out onto the streets as beggers. From Adam Nossiter at The New York Times:
A government spokesman, Bamba Ndiaye, said the problem was a difficult one to regulate with laws. “The phenomenon is complex because it is tied to religion,” Mr. Ndiaye said. “Those who send their children to the daara say it is to learn the Koran, and that is the best possible thing.”
“The solution is not simply to create a law,” he said. “It’s to create conditions that will change the problem. The whole problem stems from separation of church and state. In our Constitution, it says religious communities regulate themselves.”