Deputy Marième Mint Cheikh, human rights defender, was born into a family of activists. The fight for human rights is in her blood. Her father, Cheikh Dieng, an executive at the National Industrial and Mining Company (SNIM), was a trade unionist, human rights activist and political activist. He was in all the struggles since the 80s in Zouerate. It is this heritage and the grades she has amassed over several years of committed militancy within the IRA movement, which have earned her her presence today in the Chamber of the National Assembly, according to her comrades in struggle. Journey.
Marième Mint Cheikh Dieng was born in 1983 in Zoueratealthough his parents are from the District du Trarza. Elected deputy, head of the list of women of the coalition Sawab/RAGat the end of May 2023 local electionsshe considers that her impressions after this election coincide with those she has always felt as an activist of the IRA movement. « It’s just a part of the way that completes my fight for human rights, a new broader platform that I offer myself to transmit the suffering of the many victims of injustice and oppression. she points out.
On her choice as a candidate
« The choice made on my person by the president Birame Dah Abeed, leader of the IRA movement, at the national representation, only reinforces the idea that I am a soldier, ready to serve where I am asked » she underlines.
Like the two other women deputies of the Sawab/RAG coalition, Ghamou Achour and Aminetou El Hacen Dia, Marième Mint Cheikh considers that their election is in line with the revolutionary tradition of the IRA movement, which has always known how to antithesis of ambient practice. ” None of us fits the standard profile of a dyed-in-the-wool Mauritanian MP. We come from poor families, at the bottom of the social scale, without tribes, without forces of pressure, without influence she explains.
Almost in a sigh, she throws, “today we are at peace, with no debt to pay, at a time when many of our fellow MEPs must certainly hold their heads in their hands, because of the colossal sums they had to borrow to finance their electoral campaign ».
Sawab/RAG could have gotten more elected if…
Marième Mint Cheikh affirms that if the legislative elections had taken place with more transparency, the Sawab/RAG coalition could have elected other deputies who display the same profile. That of elected officials chosen not because they belong to large tribes, or come from wealthy or influential families, but because they are representative of a certain category of Mauritanian citizens who have experienced suffering and marginalization. This is, according to her, the case of the former slave Happy Mint Rabah, released in 2008 by the IRA after 30 years of servitude, and who was 2nd on the coalition’s mixed national list. This is also the case of two other candidates, a young girl and a young man, children of martyrs who were victims of the Passive Humanitaire.
“These people, if elected, would carry the cause of many people, those who languish in slavery or suffer its consequences, those who still live as widows or orphans since the purge of black soldiers in the 90s she illustrates.
Who is Marième Mint Cheikh?
Black complexion, rounded shape and well filled with the Mauritanian standard, Marième Mint Cheikh is a woman from the North, with this heritage of frankness specific to the people of this region, this false impression of naivety and candor. However, she keeps in her genes this clever and enigmatic side of Ehel Guebla (inhabitants of the South, the Trarza), this penchant for provocation and a sense of repartee. A lioness in the skin of a lamb, as rowdy, laughing in private life as she is aggressive, arrogant and direct on the field of confrontation. This description, almost all the militants of the IRA movement share it. And even more.
Born into a family of activists
Marième Mint Cheikh is a native of Zouerate, where she completed her entire school career. She grew up in the shadow of a father, a laboratory technician at the RECORDa great human rights activist, trade unionist and founding father of the General Confederation of Workers of Mauritania (CGTM), a member of the harratine emancipation movement in the early 80s, El Hor, which he represented in Zouerate. As a child, Marième watched her father come home late after endless nocturnal meetings. A habit that he will maintain, according to her, when he follows the perilous route of the Action for Change (AC) party of Messaoud Old Boulkheir until its dissolution in 2000. Then, this new adventure alongside its leader within the People’s Progressive Alliance party (APP) whose standard he carried at the level of the Tiris-Zemmour until his death (may his soul rest in peace).
« My father experienced every pressure imaginable and unimaginable from his employers. It was at the time of the powerful party-state, the Democratic and Social Republican Party (PRDS) whose motto was “if you’re not with me, you’re against me says Marième. With a smile, she continues, my father was against them; he will pay dearly for it, but he never bent ».
His salary is reduced and the company deprives him of all his benefits and bonuses. According to her, he couldn’t even feed his family properly. “My mother, Niaye Mint Boulkheïr, never tried to dissuade my father to bring him to the side of power, which would have improved our situation. She started selling donuts and fatayas to support us » she underlines.
With a broad smile, she says, ” I am forged in this mould, this is where I draw the strength of endurance, perseverance and the taste for revolt against the established order if it is unjust ».
A full-headed activist
Marième Mint Cheikh holds a degree in economics from the University of Nouakchott. She spent her entire school career in Zouerate. Primary at school 1, secondary at college then at Zouerate high school, baccalaureate in 2003.
She launched herself very young, 12 years old, into militant action within SOS Slavesthis first anti-slavery association directed by the architect Boubacar Ould Messaoud. At the end of 2008 at the beginning of 2009, she joined the IRA movement which had just been created by a small group of young harratines led by Birame Dah Abeid, former member of the SOS Esclaves organization and ex-Secretary General of the National Human Rights Commission.
Quickly, Marième Mint Cheikh forged a name for himself and stood out from the first confrontations with the police. She quickly becomes their target. The one on whom the most violent police charges fall. Roused with truncheons and kicks on each outing, it was still a mountain of challenges. Her outspokenness when she denounces slavery, becomes viral within the strata targeted by her diatribes.
Marième Mint Cheikh is one of the IRA activists who have been most arrested over the past decade, those who know best the typology of the different police stations in Nouakchott. She becomes an icon of the fight against slavery, after her four months of incarceration in the women’s prison.
Invited internationally
After her release from prison, Marième Mint Cheikh was invited to Germany in 2015, while Birame is imprisoned. She talks about IRA, its fight, the human rights situation and slavery in Mauritania. She will later be invited to Brussels to discuss the torture that the 13 IRA militants and executives had suffered, following the affair known as “Gazra Bouamatou”.
On his future role as an MP
Today MP, 2nd rapporteur of the Foreign Affairs Committee within the Parliament, Marième Mint Cheikh believes that her mission will essentially focus on the defense of the rights of victims of injustice, in particular the rights of women. She believes that it is the most oppressed fringe in the country. She gives the example of fathers who abduct their children to bring them without the opinion of their mother and without the latter being able to have the slightest possibility of recourse. She also gives the example of the power that fathers have in Mauritania to settle disputes suffered by their children with the aggressors, without their mothers being able to have a say. It is against this abusive tutoring of men, that a certain interpretation of religion confers on them, that it intends to set itself up.
« Women are the most exposed to injustice in our country, and this in all areas, particularly in the area of slavery. she finds. And to carry on, “It is the weak link in our societies ».
Within the Foreign Affairs Committee, Marième maintains that his role will be all the greater since it is in this cell where the major issues of international cooperation are debated. “This is where the corrupt practices could be the most important, where I would do everything to mitigate the impact or expose the facts she warns.
Sheikh Aïdara