Slavery Persists In Rural Mauritania

"Centuries of indoctrination have persuaded the Sahara's captives that slavery is religiously ordained -- slaves are taught that if they run away they will be barred from heaven. As a local saying puts it: "Paradise is under your master's foot." In some remote places a runaway will still be hunted down by nomad masters... Officially, slavery has long been abolished in Mauritania, but the law has never been enforced and there are an estimated 600,000 slaves, almost one in five of the country's 3.2 million people."