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document, dated June 13, 2007, which he said his family’s “owner” wrote to
renounce all ownership rights over the family. This document bore a stamp that read
the “Court of First Instance in Aouserd Camp”. When we showed a copy of this
document to Justice Minister Hamada Selma on November 13, 2007, he called it a
forgery, stating categorically that the SADR Justice Ministry has never issued, or lent
its official stamp to any document pertaining to slavery. He said that no person has
ever presented a complaint before the Justice Ministry that a qadi had refused to
perform a marriage without the consent of the bride’s family’s “owner.” Minister
Selma did say, however, that the Maliki madhhab, the school of Islamic
jurisprudence that the courts apply in the camps in matters of family and personal
status, requires the permission of the bride’s parent or guardian before the qadi will
marry her.
We wish therefore to relay to you the complaint of a woman who says a qadi refused
to marry her because the “owner” of her family withheld his consent. N’keltoum
Mahmoud, aged 23, the daughter of Halima Salim Bilal (also known as Halima Abbi
el-Keynan, a resident of the Tiguelta daïra in El-Ayoun camp) told us in November
2007 that since October 2006, she has been prevented from marrying her fiancée
because her family’s “owner,” Abi M’hamed al-Najim, refused to consent to the
marriage.
N’Keltoum and her mother, Halima, told Human Rights Watch that the qadi of the
daïra in which they reside, whose name she gave as `Ali Ould Zaya, refused to
perform the marriage ceremony without the owner’s consent. Halima said that she
subsequently went to the qadi of the wilaya, Ibrahim Sid al-Ouroussi, who told her
that the matter was between her family and the owner. Halima said that she
complained to an official at the Ministry of Justice, who told her to bring the case
before the court in Aouserd camp. Halima did so, but the judge told her that the
matter was in the hands of the owner. (The names of the official and the judge are
currently unknown to Human Rights Watch.)
In December 2006, Halima wrote a letter complaining of these events. Halima said
she delivered the letter, of which Human Rights Watch has a copy, to an official
named M’Rabbih Ouelimani at the Ministry of Justice in Rabouni camp. As of
175 Human Rights Watch December 2008