U.N. urges Mali to end hereditary slavery

FILE PHOTO: A Tuareg child pushes away a Bella girl (L) at a camp for Malian refugees in Goudebou, Burkina Faso, April 5, 2014. REUTERS/Misha Hussain/File Photo

DAKAR (Reuters) - U.N. human rights experts on Friday called on Mali to crack down on hereditary slavery after a series of violent attacks against people born into servitude.

Slavery was officially abolished in colonial Mali in 1905, but a system persists in which people are still forced to work without pay for families that enslaved their ancestors, the United Nations group of experts said in a statement.