Mauritania – American labour unions warned the Mauritanian government against the continuation of violation of human rights represented by the worst forms of human trafficking. The Guardian newspaper published a report saying that the routine abuse of thousands of enslaved Mauritanians, including rape, beatings and unpaid labour, should prevent the African republic from receiving US trade benefits, American labour unions have said.Mauritania, which has one of the highest rates of modern-day slavery in the world and has been roundly criticized for its poor human rights record, is currently on a list of countries that benefit from the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). The act, designed to promote the economic development of countries that can show they uphold human rights and meet labour standards, enables African countries to export goods duty-free to US markets. The US trade union AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Labour and Congress of Industrial Organizations, this week called on the US trade representative to remove Mauritania from the roster of approved countries. “The government of Mauritania routinely fails to conduct investigations into cases of slavery, rarely pursues prosecutions for those responsible for the practice and fails to ensure access to remedy or otherwise support victims,” the union wrote in a petition, adding that the state harasses and imprisons anti-slavery activists and will not publicly acknowledge the continued existence of slavery. Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981, the last country in the world to do so, but only made it a crime in 2007. Since then, campaigners say the government has passed a handful of inefficient reforms and failed to properly address the issue. Although the union says it is unlikely the US will immediately remove Mauritania from the Agoa list, Celeste Drake, trade and globalization policy specialist at the AFL-CIO, said the petition should “put Mauritania on watch”.
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