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
ability to function
apothegmatising
ashiver
asset-purchase
at a high plane
autochthonic
be behind
bilamellated
Birresborn
body hugger
Brazilian blowouts
bucket chain dredge
bures
campsosternus mirabilis
capacity-input filter
carp.
cauterization of sclera
cell-phones
chabrol
charge storage flipflop
Chinese tallowtree seed oil
Circinae
collection anionic
concentrated waste store
crossed belt sander
databook
delivery car
density of occupancy
dery
Desmodoroidea
door-stops
double beat
duty of master
earn a good reputation
endotenon
fragilis
fuel particles
fuel reprocessing
gaging hole
gastrulae
glycerol trioleate
Gorodovikovsk
governing word
grammaticity
Hajdu-Bihar Megye
herd-average
i-stihen
independent rail fastening
inhibited error
inveighed
larval fishes
logs
Lyotardian
maltose-1-phosphate
megacoulombs
mine timer
momentary supply
mongolians
Montenegran
nardini
non-domiciled
noncivilized
noncommutative right context sensitive grammar
oclitic texture
Omskaya Oblast'
optimum reaction vessel water level
Oransbari
oxidizer overflow connector
Petit truss
photoconductivity dosimetry
polyvalent bacterial vaccine
primary of international law
quaternary fission
rated head
real-numbers
recits
restabilized
riunites
rope stranded wire
safe-hold
Sain-Paulin cheese
salpas
saturated set
scallions
silk cloth
snail clover
soluteness
special ordinance
spillway of food
syringaldehyde
tevfik
throb with
Toti's operation
true face
turbulent skin-friction coefficient
two-resistance theory
unlost
volumetric losses
wet-and-dry-bulb hygrometers
world's merchant shipping