DAKAR, Senegal (Reuters) -- In a dirty white T-shirt hanging down to his knees, 4-year-old Harouna Balde begs for coins in bare feet among the traffic on the polluted streets of Dakar Holding a rusty begging tin that is the trademark of the "talibes" -- students at Senegal's Koranic schools -- Balde says he must take back money or face a beating from his religious teacher, or marabout."I must bring back 500 francs ($0.90) every day to my master or face punishment," says the tiny boy. He travels from his squalid daara, or religious school, in the distant suburb of Thiaroye to beg all day in the city center.
Balde is one of an estimated 100,000 children begging on the streets of Senegal, according to U.N. officials -- most of them sent out by their religious teachers. The begging is a modern corruption of a Senegalese tradition, which allowed poor rural families to provide their children with a basic education and sometimes send them to towns where they might have greater opportunities.