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Children's rights in Mali are secured by several laws designed to protect children and provide for their welfare, including an ordinance that provides for regional positions as "child delegates" to safeguard the rights and interests of children. However, as with most legal issues, this is the official account, based on laws that have only a status on paper. There are no provisions for the execution of the laws, and as any visit to any medium-sized town in Mali will show, there are scores of children in the street who live on the verge of starvation and who are often maltreated. Especially the talibe, young boys 'given' to a 'marabout', are subject to all sorts of negligence if not inhuman treatment by their masters. Such 'marabouts' are also in practice above the law—in spite of widespread maltreatment of children by them not a single complaint against them has been made. There is a serious problem here, because hardly any research in this area has been carried out. However, a qualitative study by Jelle Hilven, of the Free University of Brussels, revealed acute deviations from official politics in daily life.