As they walked through Keur Gol's sandy streets, the chatter stopped and, often, insults burst forth. In this squalid neighborhood of the holy city of Touba, the headquarters of the Mouride brotherhood in west-central Senegal, Aïda (not her real name) and her friends now lead a life of pariahs. "'You're the marabout's leftovers! You're secondhand!' That's what they call us," mumbled the cowering teenager.

Gathered in the district leader's courtyard, who set up the interviews on this late June morning, "the 36 girls of Touba" as they are dubbed in the press formed a single body. Beneath their colorful veils, they teased each other absent-mindedly, without ever losing a sense of melancholy. In March, 28 of them filed rape charges against their Koranic master, 34-year-old Serigne Khadim Mbacké. Until then, this man had enjoyed the prestige of his surname, which in Senegal refers to the powerful Mbacké family, apostles of Mouridism, one of the country's most influential religious brotherhoods. Despite his name, on June 5, after several weeks on the run, he was placed under arrest.

United by a collective struggle, the young complainants have over the weeks found themselves a spokesperson. Aïda, the eldest, agreed to testify in an adjoining room. Her lengthy account was imbued with a sense of suppressed rage. Raised by her grandmother – her father, a traveling coffee salesman in Dakar, was often absent, and her mother suffered from a severe disability – Aïda claimed to have been raped twice and sexually assaulted once. The events allegedly took place in the Koranic school where the teacher lived with his wife and child.

"The first time, I had gone there on my mother's orders so he could laminate my little sister's religion book, which she had torn. Once in his room, he threw himself at me. I screamed so he let me go, telling me that if I said anything, he'd kill me," said the teenager, wringing her hands.

"The next time, I went with my little sister to her recital. He asked me to follow him into the bedroom. There, he made me drink a potion he kept in a bucket. My head began to spin. I sat down on the bed. He raped me." For four days, Aïda suffered from dizziness and hip pain. When faced with the doctors at the hospital where her grandmother had taken her, she remained silent. A second rape was allegedly committed during a prayer vigil, again in the same room. Aïda eventually confided in her best friend, Yacine, who told her that she too had been assaulted by the teacher.

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