时间:2019-02-06 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2008年(三月)


英语课
By Nico Colombant
Dakar
10 March 2008

As a week-long international Islamic conference gets under way in Dakar, Senegal, aid workers are raising the alarm on tens of thousands of Senegalese children who have been given away by their parents to Koranic teachers. VOA's Nico Colombant reports from Dakar, with additional reporting by Tatiana Mossot, that many of the children spend hours begging for money and also face abuse.


Children known as talibe are being given a break, and games to play, as well as food, at this aid center.


Usually, their job during the day is to beg for money for their religious teachers.


But some, like these children trying to do a puzzle, are able to escape here for a few hours every week.


The aid worker who runs the center in MBour is Annie Camara. While helping 1 the children, she found out some were being sexually abused by older talibe or by their teachers.


When she pressed charges in one case involving a young boy she believes had been raped 2, she says she ran into trouble.


She says all the religious leaders known as marabouts, and even the local population, became angry with her. She says no one wanted to believe that a man could sleep with a boy. She says no one wanted to listen to what she was saying.


She says she used to receive 700 children at her center, but that the talibe were told they should not even speak to her anymore, much less come to her center.


All of a sudden, she says, she was seen as evil.


She says she did not know marabouts could be so powerful.


While the children play outside, Camara clicks on her computer to show images of wounded talibe children.


She says they often come to her with terrible injuries. Most of them look like they were beaten.


Marabouts deny they beat the children, and say they are the only ones giving them an education.


Another aid worker, Mohamed Cherif Diop, says he has nothing against marabouts or Islamic teachings, but finds the lack of regulation for Koranic schools alarming.


He says it creates what he calls "a permissive situation", where everything can be done, and everyone can do whatever they want. He says it leads to pedophilia, violence against minors 3, even the trafficking of children.


The government says it is trying to create religious schools in which children can learn Koranic teachings without having to beg. Officials in the department of what is called non-conventional learning at the Ministry 4 of Solidarity 5 say they are trying to find ways to reduce the marabouts' dependence 6 on begging.


But they say it is not easy, because they admit many marabouts have close ties with elected politicians.


At night, another aid group plies 7 the streets in a minivan looking for talibe kids who sleep outside.


One young child is huddled 8 up in his tee-shirt, barefoot, looking cold, tired and scared. But he refuses any help.


An aid worker says this happens often. He adds it is not surprising that these children become suspicious of everyone when they are treated so badly, sometimes as early as the age of three.


Most of their families are too poor to take care of them, so they prefer to give them away to religious teachers.


The latest estimates are that there are 10,000 child beggars out on the streets of Dakar, and 100,000 in Senegal, a reality which will be hidden from the cordoned 9 off VIP area this week during the Islamic Conference.




n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的,辅助的
  • The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
  • By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。
v.以暴力夺取,强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 );强奸
  • A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
  • We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致,不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句
n.未成年人( minor的名词复数 );副修科目;小公司;[逻辑学]小前提v.[主美国英语]副修,选修,兼修( minor的第三人称单数 )
  • The law forbids shops to sell alcohol to minors. 法律禁止商店向未成年者出售含酒精的饮料。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • He had three minors this semester. 这学期他有三门副修科目。 来自《简明英汉词典》
n.(政府的)部;牧师
  • They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
  • We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。
n.团结;休戚相关
  • They must preserve their solidarity.他们必须维护他们的团结。
  • The solidarity among China's various nationalities is as firm as a rock.中国各族人民之间的团结坚如磐石。
n.依靠,依赖;信任,信赖;隶属
  • Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
  • He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。
v.使用(工具)( ply的第三人称单数 );经常供应(食物、饮料);固定往来;经营生意
  • The ship plies between London and Sydney. 这船常航行于伦敦与悉尼之间。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • The bus plies from the station to the hotel. 这辆公共汽车往来于车站和旅馆之间。 来自辞典例句
挤在一起(huddle的过去式与过去分词形式)
  • We huddled together for warmth. 我们挤在一块取暖。
  • We huddled together to keep warm. 我们挤在一起来保暖。
v.封锁,用警戒线围住( cordon的过去式 )
  • Police cordoned off the area until the bomb was defused. 警方封锁了这个地区直到炸弹被拆除为止。 来自《简明英汉词典》
  • Police cordoned off the road and diverted commuter traffic. 警察封锁了道路并分流交通。 来自《简明英汉词典》
学英语单词
-teenth
angular motion
appointment-only
ash-greys
autocratic leader
automatic data processing systems
Ban Nong Yang
Bandwidth-on-demand
bare the metal
basilar membranae
bonnett
catalogable permanent file
cheek retractor
chloroethylaminoanthraquinones
classical-styles
closure of simplex
collective body
community residents
copius
coraebus aesopus
crummy
cystomyxoma
dispension
disproportionateness
distrbuted processing
electro-gas arc welding
excitaton source
exhibition expenditures
false myxoma
fear-stricken
fibre grease
firiming agent
fix things up
fluidized layer
forage for
fund levy
go on an outing
graphic kernel system
gravity spectrum
gravity tectonics
green cormorant
guilt-trip
heliocentric declination
heterodyne interference
high speed steel end mill
Igo
in one piece nozzle
income-expenditures
interpretation of dreams
island-dwellers
Knelston
laid lower
lead crown glass
Leo III
linen fiber
load up on sth
lyme-hound
make gains
manufacturer's rep
mechano-chemical system
medical diagnostic radiation
metallographs
Middleton Stoney
missel-bird
Mogogelo
noas
note to the accounts
number identification
off-colo(u)r product
oystered
pal(a)eohydrology
Palespotted
pasta rocket
pasteur pipet
permineralised
planetary landing
plant room
plumbaginaceous
pulsed lasers
re-taining part of the extra profit
reed sweep
Resia
ring-a-ring
screen scarifier
sewerage of separate system
site autonomy
taint-hook
take springs out from
testing of soil
tetrazoles
think no small bear of
Tolbukhinski Okrǔg
toona sureni(bl.)merr.
total color blindness
Tristars
wages fund
wooden bridge
written calculation
yeast-liked
zero-zero gel
zhishi xiebai guizhi decoction