th Resolution 47/135 of 18 December 1992. Article 1(1) of this document indeed stipulates:“States shall protect the existence and national or ethnic, cultural, religious or linguistic identity of the minorities within their respective territories and shall stimulate the establishment of conditions conducive to the promotion of such identity.” From the foregoing, it is apparent that international human rights law and the community of States accord a certain importance to the eradication of discrimination in all its guises. Various texts adopted at the global and regional levels have indeed affirmed this repeatedly. Consequently, for a country to subject its own indigenes to discriminatory treatment only because of the colour of their skin is an unacceptable discriminatory attitude and a violation of the very spirit of the African Charter and of the letter of its Article 2. 132. Article 5 of the Charter states that: “All forms of exploitation and degradation of man particularly slavery … shall be prohibited.” 133. Communications 54/91 and 98/93 allege that a majority of the Mauritanian population is composed of slaves. The government states that slavery had been abolished under the French colonial regime. The communications also allege that freed slaves maintain traditional and close links with their former masters and that this constitutes another form of exploitation. 134. During its mission to Mauritania in June 1996, the Commission’s delegation noted that it was still possible to find people considered as slaves in certain parts of the country. Though Edict Nº 81-234 of 9 November [1981] had officially abolished slavery in Mauritania, it was not followed by effective measures aimed at the eradication of the practice. This is why, in many cases, the descendants of slaves find themselves in the service of the masters, without any remuneration. This is due either to the lack of alternative opportunities or because they had not understood that they had been freed of all forms of servitude for many years. From all appearances, some freed slaves chose to return to their former masters. From the Commission’s point of view, the State has the responsibility to ensure the effective application of the Edict and thus ensure the freedom of its citizens, to carry our inquiries and initiate judicial action against the perpetrators of violations of the national legislation. 135. Independently from the justification given, by the defendant State, the Commission considers, in line with the provisions of Article 23(3) of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights , that everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. These provisions are complemented by those of Article 7 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights . In view of the foregoing, the Commission deems that there was a violation of Aticle 5 of the Charter due to practices analogous to slavery, and emphasises that unremunerated work is tantamount to a violation of the right to respect for the dignity inherent in the human being. It furthermore considers that the conditions to which the descendants of slaves are subjected clearly constitute exploitation and degradation of man, both practices condemned by the African Charter. However, the African Commission cannot conclude that there is a practice of slavery based on the evidence before it. 136. Article 17 of the Charter stipulates that: “2. Every individual may freely take part in the cultural life of his community. 3. The promotion and protection of morals and traditional values recognised by the community shall be the duty of the State…”. 137. Language is an integral part of the structure of culture; it in fact constitutes its pillar and means of expression par excellence. Its usage enriches the individual and enables him to take an active part in the community and in its activities. To deprive a man of such participation amounts to depriving him of his identity. 138. The government made it known that there exists in the country an institute of national languages, for over ten years now, and that this institute teaches those languages. However, a persisting problem is the fact that many of these languages are exclusively spoken in small parts of the country and that they are not written. Communication 54/91 alleges the violation of linguistic rights but does not provide any further evidence as to how the government denies the black groups the right to speak their own languages. Information available to the Commission does not provide it a sufficient basis to determine if there has been a violation of Article 17.