The Limits of Shock and Shame: An Ethnographic Case Analysis of the Naming and Shaming Technique to Promote Human Rights for the Taalibe Qur'anic School Students of Senegal

Naming and shaming is a widely-used strategy to promote human rights globally. Organizations' denouncements of abuses have exerted pressure on states to react, particularly in cases of repression and physical violations. However, evidence of the technique's effectiveness at reducing abuses, varying in type and socio-cultural context, and over time, is lacking. In this article, I explore the technique's limits through an ethnographic case analysis of a naming and shaming campaign in Senegal that succeeded in eliciting a state reaction. Due to incongruence with local human rights efforts, however, it failed to achieve its goal of curbing forced child begging.