Child beggars increase in Senegal, rights groups urge enforcement of child protection laws

Talibe students walk in a field littered with garbage, holding the buckets from which they ate a lunch of rice and fish in Guediawaye, a suburb on the outskirts of of Dakar, Senegal, Monday, April 20, 2015. They need to find more food before returning to school so they don’t get beaten. Human Rights Watch and a coalition of 40 organizations in Senegal are calling on the government and police to enforce laws adopted nearly a decade ago that prohibit forcing children to beg. The groups issued a report Monday that said more than 30,000 Muslim boys who are sent to Quranic schools in Dakar region are exploited by teachers and forced to beg for food and money. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn) (The Associated Press)

Wounds on a Talibe student's knees as conditions at his local school, called a Daaras, are not sanitary, creating a health risk to him and other students, in Guediawaye, a suburb on the outskirts of Dakar, Senegal, Monday, April 20, 2015.Human Rights Watch and a coalition of 40 organizations in Senegal are calling on the government and police to enforce laws adopted nearly a decade ago that prohibit forcing children to beg. The groups issued a report Monday that said more than 30,000 Muslim boys who are sent to Quranic schools in Dakar region are exploited by teachers and forced to beg for food and money. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn) (The Associated Press)

Talibe students sit outside there home in Guediawaye, a suburb on the outskirts of of Dakar, Senegal, Monday, April 20, 2015. Human Rights Watch and a coalition of 40 organizations in Senegal are calling on the government and police to enforce laws adopted nearly a decade ago that prohibit forcing children to beg. The groups issued a report Monday that said more than 30,000 Muslim boys who are sent to Quranic schools in Dakar region are exploited by teachers and forced to beg for food and money. (AP Photo/Jane Hahn) (The Associated Press)