Rampant slave trade on Mali’s borderlands

“Orfi,” or unofficial but religiously valid, marriages are taking Algeria’s Bordj Badji Mokhtar border with Mali by storm, casting a grim shadow over its local people. As a result, thousands of children are left without official or registered identities – effectively dual citizens with parents from both Mali and Algeria. People are now rushing to submit requests for state recognition of their marriages, their pregnancies or their births. Sheikh Omar, an elderly man waiting in the queue outside the Bordj Badji Mokhtar municipality office, tells Arabstoday he is desperate to secure his son’s citizenship after marrying someone unofficially. Omar has no documents to prove that he is Algerian, having been born in the Malian border city of Gao. Omar’s son is now 25, the traditional age for marriage in the Sahara, where nomads and Tuareg peoples don’t tend to believe in official documents for practices they have been carrying out for centuries. Border closures and socio-economic depression has only further complicated their lives. Municipality director, speaking on condition of anonymity, told us about the daily tragedies people are facing as a result of unofficial marriages. “Orfi marriages have been around for ages but they’ve only become since the border closed,” he said. “Now Algerians who used to live in Gao have difficulty proving they’re actually Algerian, even though they are Algerian.” “We’re getting up to 280 requests for documentation every month. That comes to about 2,500 since the beginning of the crisis,” the official added. But conditions on the border have necessitated a rather more disturbing outcome. Slavery is now on the rise. Malians fleeing the conflict are forced into desperate labour conditions, although they themselves prefer to be known as “servants,” not slaves.