By Rose Skelton DAKAR, Nov 8 (Reuters) - A low hum rises from a row of rough wooden shacks in the winding, sand-covered back streets of the Fass neighbourhood in Senegal's seaside capital, Dakar. More than 30 children, known as "talibe", sit on the dirty concrete floor of a daara, or religious school, chanting verses from the Koran in Arabic. These children are lucky -- they have been spared the worst abuses of a centuries-old system of religious education that some say has been perverted. Long little discussed in this mainly Muslim country, the tradition is now being questioned. In Dakar, children as young as three from Koranic schools beg on polluted street corners, desperate for a few coins to take back to their masters. Many are beaten by their teachers -- marabouts -- or older pupils if they return with meagre takings. But in Fass, Pape Tall, an activist who went to a daara himself, is working with the school to find other ways of making money, and seeking to give the children more opportunities. "I ran away from my school at the age of 14 after my teacher beat me violently for not concentrating on my Koran board," said Tall, 52, who has worked with the daara for over two years. Tall taught the children at the school to take photos with small plastic cameras, encouraging older boys to earn money by shooting pictures at weddings and other ceremonies. He then collected enough money to buy 65 plastic chairs which the school now rents out, potentially earning $11 a day. "For now we are saving the money. But later, we're going to spend it on basic needs, like cleaning, buying soap, buying water, cleaning the rooms where they live," he said. Tall's actions should please President Abdoulaye Wade who has called for action on child begging, which does little to promote his vision of Senegal as a progressive country, due to host a Muslim summit in 2008. TRADITION A 2004 estimate by the United Nations children's fund UNICEF indicated up to 100,000 children, mostly talibe, were begging across Senegal, representing nearly 1 percent of the population. Aid groups say nearly all the hundreds of children sleeping rough in Dakar's streets have run away from daaras. The tradition of sending children to religious schools dates to the 17th century. Daaras, traditionally in the countryside, offered rural families a chance to educate their children in return for work on the land. But in Senegal, droughts in the 1970s and 1980s led to a rural exodus and many daaras moved from villages to Dakar, separating boys from their families and leaving the marabouts with little or no income. Today, many parents send their children away to these schools because of poverty and instability -- especially in the cases of boys sent to Dakar from volatile, poor Guinea-Bissau, which borders Senegal's restive southern province of Casamance. Seeking alms or begging has a long history and religious significance among West Africa's Muslims. Throwing oneself on the charity of others is regarded as a route to humility but some now say this tradition has been abused by marabouts. "Some of them (marabouts) are simply using their self-assigned status to exploit children for purposes of their own income," said Ian Hopwood, Senegal representative of UNICEF. "If you go out on the streets and ask children if they have been learning the Koran, some will recite whole passages, and others will not be able to recite a single verse," he said. In October, President Wade brought religious leaders, aid groups and government members together to discuss begging, and called for the creation of a special agency to help street children. Senegal's Minister for the Family Aida Mbodj says child beggars from nearby countries will be sent home with help from the International Organisation for Migration. CHANGING MINDS On a corner in a well-off residential district in Dakar, 5-year-old Ousmane Diakhate holds out his hand to passing cars. He speaks no French, Senegal's official language, but tells in Wolof, its lingua franca, how he has recently started at a Koranic school, where he studies for two or three hours every morning before coming here to beg. Diakhate is fortunate enough still to live with his parents, but he must give some of what he earns -- around 500 CFA francs ($0.96) a day -- to his daara's marabout. At the school aided by Tall, the boys still go out to beg, but not as much as before, leaving more time to study -- and to play football with other children in the neighbourhood. They are also learning French, improving their chances of getting a job. The daara's marabout, Thierno Aliou Kande is working with six other marabouts to explore other ways of making money. Sitting on a thin mattress, a string of prayer beads in his hands, he says some marabouts have copied him, but not all. "There are a lot coming from neighbouring Guinea-Bissau, because Dakar is a place where they can earn money. They don't understand when I tell them to stop sending the kids out to beg." (Additional reporting by Alistair Thomson and Babacar Ndiaye) (For more news about emergency relief visit Reuters AlertNet http://www.alertnet.org email: alertnet@reuters.com; +44 207 542 2432.)
