MAURITANIA

Mauritania is part of what many consider the unseen Africa—for some, this is where Africa truly begins. Unlike Morocco, which is often culturally associated with southern Europe, Mauritania is deeply rooted in sub-Saharan Africa. Yet it remains little known, even among overlanders. What is even less known is that modern-day slavery still exists in Mauritania. During our visit in 2011, it was suggested that hundreds of thousands of people were still enslaved. Slavery was only officially outlawed in 2007, and for years the law went largely unenforced. The first known prosecution occurred in January 2011, when a man was charged with owning slaves and received a sentence of just six months in jail. At the time of our visit in 2011, estimates suggested that between 500,000 and 680,000 people were living in slavery,with some estimates still around 100,000 in 2018.