Mauritania was a suspected source and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation.
Supposedly, some women, men, and children from traditional slave castes were subjected to slavery-related practices, rooted in ancestral master-slave relationships, which continue to exist in a limited fashion in both rural and urban settings.
Mauritanian and West African boys - referred to as talibes - were recruited to study at Koranic schools, but were sometimes subsequently subjected to forced begging within the country by religious teachers known as marabouts.
Girls have been trafficked internally and from neighboring West African countries such as Mali, Senegal, and Gambia for involuntary domestic servitude.
The government has stated it is willing to take action, but does not have the necessary resources to fund needed services, such as shelters for trafficking victims, legal assistance, and training in life-skills and income generating activities.
Government-provided access to legal and medical services was very limited, and the government did not offer shelter or long-term housing benefits to victims aside from the aforementioned center for talibes.
The government's law enforcement, immigration, and social services personnel did not have a formal system of proactively identifying victims of trafficking among high-risk persons with whom they came in contact.
In slavery cases, civil society representatives claimed that judges attempted to broker informal agreements between the masters and disgruntled slaves.
In 2009 the government worked in association with an international organization to draft a National Action Plan to Fight Trafficking in Persons, to be released in 2010.