{"id":13394,"date":"2018-08-07T09:09:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-07T13:09:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13394"},"modified":"2018-08-07T09:13:15","modified_gmt":"2018-08-07T13:13:15","slug":"after-escaping-35-years-of-slavery-this-black-mauritanian-woman-is-running-for-office","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/?p=13394","title":{"rendered":"After escaping 35 years of slavery, this black Mauritanian woman is running for office"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

…. HUMAN RIGHTS ….<\/p>\n

An article from Face2face Africa<\/a><\/p>\n

A former slave in Mauritania has put her name on the ballot for the elections in September.<\/p>\n

Habi Mint Rabah became a slave when she was just five years old and was only released in 2008.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Habi Mint Rabah became a slave when she was just five years old and was only released in 2008.<\/p>\n

\u201cI became a slave at the age of five.\u00a0Every day I had to take care of the flock.\u00a0Every night I was raped by my master.\u00a0I always believed, without really understanding, that it was normal, \u201cshe\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

As a slave, she\u00a0hauled water, did the cooking, and sometimes slept next to the goats on the sand.<\/p>\n

\u201cI carried the water on my back. I ate the leftover food. If they left nothing, I had nothing to eat. I was sleeping wherever I could find a place \u2013 sometimes in the sand, with the goats.\u201d<\/p>\n

(Article continued in the right column)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Question related to this article:\n<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\n
\nWhat is the state of human rights in the world today?<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

(Article continued from the left column)<\/p>\n

Her\u00a0owners\u00a0<\/a> would even deny her the chance to pray, telling her that she did not deserve to because her soul was inferior.<\/p>\n

She was able to escape slavery thanks to her brother\u00a0Bilal Ould Rabah\u00a0who freed himself and alerted the anti-slavery movement IRA and human rights group, who mobilised her release after 35 years in bondage.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if sometimes I don\u2019t have anything to eat, at least I have my freedom now.\u00a0My freedom is the most important thing. I\u2019m like another person now. I\u2019m the master of my own life,\u201d she said after she was released.<\/p>\n

Rabah is one of the black women in Mauritania who have\u00a0been enslaved by their light-skin country people.<\/p>\n

The country is considered the slave-capital of Africa and the practice is still ongoing. The government has denied the existence of\u00a0slavery\u00a0<\/a> amid pressure from the United Nations and other rights groups.<\/p>\n

Rights groups have also been under attack for protesting slavery, with the government accusing them of\u00a0colluding\u00a0<\/a> with the West to destabilise the country.<\/p>\n

Rabah is vying for a parliamentary seat under the\u00a0Sawap-Ira coalition.<\/p>\n

According to the president of IRA, Biram Dah Abeid, Rabah is the perfect candidate for a number of reasons:<\/p>\n

\u201c[She\u2019s]\u00a0a victim of slavery that has been liberated.\u00a0She is in our ranks, militant, and it is she who will bring the contradiction to the dominant slavery group, in the future Mauritanian Parliament,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

This will be the first time for the abolitionist group to participate in elections after it registered as a political party.<\/p>\n

(Thank you to Janet Hudgins, the CPNN reporter for this article.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

…. HUMAN RIGHTS …. An article from Face2face Africa A former slave in Mauritania has put her name on the ballot for the elections in September. Habi Mint Rabah became a slave when she was just five years old and was only released in 2008. Habi Mint Rabah became a slave when she was just … Continue reading After escaping 35 years of slavery, this black Mauritanian woman is running for office<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,13,74],"tags":[9,8],"class_list":["post-13394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-africa","category-human-rights","category-mideast","tag-africa","tag-mideast"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13394"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13394\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/english.cpnn-world.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}