By Alistair Thomson

DAKAR, April 24 (Reuters) - Senegal is asking its powerful Muslim leaders to help get thousands of child beggars from Koranic schools off the streets and into class.

Many children in the overwhelmingly Muslim country go to Koranic schools called daaras, but thousands end up in rags begging because their teachers and parents can't make ends meet -- or because they are exploited by unscrupulous daara masters as a source of cash.

Political figures and foreign donors and campaigners met Muslim leaders and the traditional leader of the capital Dakar's oldest city community on Tuesday in a mosque on the first stage of a five-day tour across the West African country.

"There are daaras where the Koranic teacher has no resources, and neither do the parents, and those children have to beg," said Ababacar Laye Basse, a daara teacher who campaigns against exploitation of children.

"But there is a new phenomenon where children, including some from neighbouring countries, go out begging. They are being exploited, they are not being educated," he said after addressing Muslim and community leaders dressed in white or bright coloured hats and robes known as boubous.

The delegation touring more than a dozen localities across the former French colony includes the country representatives of the World Bank and the U.N. Children's Fund UNICEF.

UNICEF estimated in 2004 that up to 100,000 children, mostly daara pupils, known as "talibe", were begging across Senegal -- a figure representing nearly 1 percent of the population.

TIN CANS

A study being carried out now may give a deeper understanding of how crowds of ragged children as young as 3-years-old end up proffering empty tin cans for spare change from passing motorists in one of West Africa's richest cities.

Many can say little more than two words in the official language, French: "cent francs" -- 100 CFA francs ($0.20).

The daara tradition dates back several centuries in Senegal, and sending children away from home for a Koranic education is nothing new.

In Senegal's moderate Islamic tradition, begging was once considered an exercise in humility, but has since been converted by some into a money-making ruse.

In recent years, the problem has been exacerbated by increasing mobility, a separatist rebellion in Senegal's southern Casamance region and insecurity in neighbouring states.

President Abdoulaye Wade, who was re-elected in February in a poll dismissed by opponents as fraudulent, has lent his backing to efforts to get children off the streets and has sent a representative to support this week's campaign.

Wade, in his early 80s, has also begun a huge infrastructure building programme involving broad highways, hotels and a new airport, partly to give the city a facelift for a summit next year of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference.

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