LOVE WAXING COLD:Mauritania acts at last against slavery

The practice of slavery in Mauritania, which has survived to the present, was finally criminalised yesterday when parliament approved jail terms for slave masters.Owning slaves has been illegal in the West African desert country since 1981, but the crime carried no penalty until yesterday's unanimous vote by MPs in Nouakchott, the capital.Now people found with slaves face five to 10 years in prison, and slavery "apologists" face two-year sentences."It's a historic moment for Mauritania," said Boubacar Ould Messaoud, the president of the anti-slavery activist group SOS Slavery.Slavery has gone on for generations, with slave owners living side by side with their kept workers, whose parents and grandparents were owned by the same families. Slaves cannot choose who they marry or leave their masters' control."People were inherited as property at birth," said Beth Herzfeld of Anti-Slavery International in London.

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As in the days of Noah...