You can’t walk down any street in any city or any village for that matter in South Africa without seeing something to remind you the World Cup is fast approaching. In fact it’s five months away – and we are all bracing ourselves for the multitudes of people who will descend on this lovely country.

Congestion in Johannesburg is bad enough with the already 3 million or so people who ‘belong’ here – imagine a stampede of football fans.

But seriously the exposure would be good for South Africa – but what about the negative sides of the game?

South Africa, as I’m sure you know has a huge migrant problem. Africans from all over the continent make their way here in search of scarce jobs – and 2010 is seen as an opportunity.

But a worrying trend is the number of children coming on their own – crossing the border into SA to look for work.

And no doubt aid agencies are concerned these children are being exploited used for cheap labour – on farms or as domestic workers.

A more disturbing worry for me are the girls are being sold into sex syndicates – to ‘service’ the influx football fans and visitors to South Africa.

Imagine – a child can be sold for 300 US dollars to a pimp! How disgusting!

I’ve heard some people ask, “well why are these children even coming on their own? Surely they are asking for trouble. Where are their parents?”

The truth is many don’t have parents, there is so much poverty in their home countries and that naive sense of invincibility we all had as children plays a part too.

Remember how as children we thought we could do anything?

So these children some as young as 5 walk to South Africa, sneak in through holes along the border fence looking for a better life - bound together by a grown up desire to send money to their families back home.

I saw the fence myself for the first time after reading so many stories about border jumpers – and really – what kind of security is that?

At first glance it looks impressive – a mish-mash of barbed wire that seems impossible to get through.

Buy look closely and you will see every few metres holes cut into it by border jumpers.

Security along the fence on the Zimbabwe/South Africa border really isn’t brilliant. I was there for about two hours and one border patrol car drove past me. They didn’t even stop to ask me what on earth I was doing there!

They just waved at me. Maybe I didn’t look like a border jumper – but then what does a border jumper from Zimbabwe look like?

I saw a lot of children clearly at home with ‘playing’ along the fence. This is their home, this is how they came into South Africa and they help other border jumpers get into too by showing them the route they took.

Anyway back to the point of this blog – children being lured or sold into the sex industry.

The girls are often picked up in or around the border fence area by what we call ‘magumagumas’ in Shona – a Zimbabwean language. These are conmen or women who attack border jumpers as they cross over. Sometimes it’s just stealing money or belongings but more and more women and children are being raped – or young girls are being lured into the sex trade industry.

And it seems the police can do nothing much to stop it.

South Africa is spending 200 million US dollars on security ahead of the World Cup – surely some of that can go towards protecting migrant children from the snares of human traffickers?

Maybe I’m being naive – maybe pulling of a fanstastic World Cup is more important than ensuring the safety of thousands of child migrants thought to be in South Africa right now!

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/africa/2010/01/23/child-trafficking-and-world-cup-football

A New Zealand UNICEF organiser is warning that the Haiti quake is creating ideal conditions for child-traffickers to operate.

United Nations children's fund UNICEF is working to try and minimise the risk of child trafficking in the wake of the earthquake.

UNICEF said children had gone missing from hospitals in Haiti since the quake struck, raising fears of trafficking for adoption abroad.

UNICEF adviser Jean Luc Legrand said on Friday that about 15 cases of children disappearing from hospitals and not with their own family had been documented, and it was known that Haiti had an international network of child trading well before the quake struck.

UNICEF New Zealand executive director Dennis McKinlay said the huge damage and breakdown of normal society wrought by the quake had created ideal conditions for child traffickers to operate.
"UNICEF is aware of reports of children have been removed from Haiti without due process or the proper documentation. The Haitian Government has been informed of these reports and is investigating," Mr McKinlay said.

"We know from experience of past emergencies that trafficking takes place in the chaos that follows a natural disaster. Unscrupulous individuals prey on vulnerable children who may have become separated from family members. Children may be abducted to meet a demand for trafficked children as cheap labour or for sexual exploitation."

He said UNICEF was supporting the Government to boost its vigilance of exit points to prevent children being taken out of Haiti illegally.

The agency had joined with partners to start setting up safe spaces for all unaccompanied children, including infants.

"UNICEF is also pooling information and resources with 28 other agencies and Haitian authorities to protect children in Haiti, including the setting up of a child protection hotline," Mr McKinlay said.
"With the assistance of UN peacekeepers, hospitals have been visited to ensure that hospital staff members are aware of the need to check the credentials of anyone who removes a child."

Mr McKinlay said earlier that New Zealanders were making inquiries about adopting Haiti children lost or separated from their families, but warned against it.

"While people have the best of motives and really do want to help, it's wrong to think of vulnerable Haitian children as if they are lost puppies that can be rescued from an SPCA shelter."

Adoption was not a "quick fix" solution as the children could not be assumed to be orphans, Mr McKinlay said.

"It is difficult to determine the fate of their parents or close relatives immediately following a disaster and it has to be assumed for the moment they still have close relatives who are alive."

Adoption should be considered only after thorough attempts had been made to reunite children with family.

The best way for New Zealanders to help was to make a donation.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10622184

New Delhi, Jan. 22: The Supreme Court today directed all state governments to set up juvenile boards, child welfare committees and juvenile police units within six weeks.

A bench, headed by Justice Dalveer Bhandari, passed the order while hearing a public interest litigation that sought the court’s intervention to deal with child trafficking, which is rampant in the areas bordering Nepal and Bangladesh.

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties, the petitioner, said that juvenile welfare committees did not exist in even half the districts across the country. These committees are expected to oversee the implementation of child-related laws and schemes.

The bench will sit every Friday to address issues relating to child trafficking.

The court also appointed the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights as the nodal authority to ensure compliance with court orders. The commission will report to the court every month.

The Union government will sanction extra funds and infrastructure required to set up the juvenile boards and welfare committees.

The juvenile boards will be set up under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000, as amended in 2006. Although the law has been notified and the rules have been framed, it is yet to be implemented so far.

The apex court also asked solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam to come up with an incentive package to encourage parents of rescued children if they send them to schools.

A one-day workshop on worst forms of child labour in cocoa growing areas has ended at Duayaw-Nkwanta in the Tano North District.

It was attended by 60 community child labour protection committee members drawn from 10 cocoa growing areas in the district and was organised by Aid for Change Ghana, an NGO in collaboration with the district assembly.

Closing the workshop Mr. Joseph Kwabena Obeng, Deputy District Coordinating Director, said child labour had become a societal canker that needed urgent measures to eradicate it.

He said: “Like a disease, if it is allowed to continue most of our children of school-going age would become liabilities of the state”.

Barima Akwasi Amankwa, a resource person, appealed to parents to enrol their children in school and to provide them with basic teaching and learning materials.

He reminded parents of Article 3 of the International Labour Organisation convention 182, of which Ghana is a signatory that states that any parent found in the sale and child trafficking would be made to face the full rigours of the law.

ALANGIR: With cases of labour trafficking and child labour torture coming to the fore, different organisations working on the issue today joined hands to eliminate the menace.

Concentrating on the recent child labour torture case involving a junior engineer (JE), the forum sought cooperation from all sections of society to help rehabilitate the victims of torture. Kalyan, which brought Shyam Sundar Podh in serious a condition to Balangir hospital, drew the attention of these organisations to help Shyam and press for the arrest of the JE Neheru Behera, who allegedly sent Shyam to Cuttack to work.

Meanwhile, former Joint Director of Health and Family Welfare Dipti Pattnaik discussed the matter with Balangir Collector Aswathy S, who promised to provide medical help. ‘’ The district Collector promised to help the victim but leaving aside the legal part of it. Our first job is to save the life of the boy, who has been paralysed due to severe spinal injury’’, said Pattnaik. She donated Rs 10,000 to Kalyan for giving justice to the victim.

She said sending the boy to far off place for work in informal way is like trafficking of labour.

‘’The JE should be treated as a labour trafficker in this case’’, she stated. Secretary of Kalyan Meenakshi Purohit said the forum will fight until justice is delivered to Shyam.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Friday firmly told the Centre that the scourge of child trafficking and  its extent in a civilised country like India was just not acceptable and the government had to strengthen mechanism to curb it. 

ACCORDING to a US government report, Bangladesh along with India, Myanmar, Brazil, China and the Philippines has been placed in the 'top six countries' linked to individual products that use child for forced labour.

Children and forced labourers are mining gold, sewing clothing and harvesting cocoa around the world, and India is the source for the biggest number of products made by these workers, the Reuters report says. The department of labour for the first time released a list of goods produced by child or forced labourer in foreign countries after the US Congress asked for its compilation. The department looked at 122 products in 58 countries. 

In the new US report, India was linked to the highest number of products made with child labour or forced labour including soccer balls and clothing. Myanmar was noted the most often for forced labour in products like rice, sugarcane and rubber. The purpose for doing this is to 'shine a spotlight' so more activities can take place that target these problems, a senior official for international affairs in the US department of labour is quoted to have said. Child labour laws vary widely and the practice is banned in many countries nowadays. 

An international convention ratified by 154 countries requires them to set 'a minimum working age' and work towards eradicating child labour. The International Labour Organisation (ILO) has found that 69 per cent of child labour worldwide is in agriculture. The most common agricultural goods produced by child or forced labour are cotton, sugarcane, tobacco, coffee, rice and cocoa. Both forms of labour for cotton production were found in countries including China, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The listing of specific goods and countries, however, does not mean that total production of specific products involve forced or child labour.

NEW DELHI: A day after TOI carried a report on the delay in notification of the Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, the Supreme Court’s anguish on the issue made the Centre promise on Wednesday that it would bring the Act into effect ‘‘very soon’’. The Act would make it mandatory for every child between 6 and 14 years to go to school.
 
A Bench headed by Chief Justice K G Balakrishnan said: ‘‘If the Act was implemented in letter and spirit, the ugly face of child labour can be wiped out... There will be no child at work but in school...where he ought to be.’’ Solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam assured that the Act would be brought into effect "very soon". 

The apex court’s anguish was understandable as its own judgment in 1993 first brought into focus the right of children to free and compulsory education, which finally appeared to be on course with Parliament enacting the Right to Education Act in August last year. But the Act was still to be notified to enable its implementation, petitioners advocate M C Mehta and National Council for Protection of Child Rights chairperson Shanta Sinha pointed out. 


Solicitor-general Gopal Subramaniam agreed with the apex court that school was the place for children and promised that "the Right to Education Act will be brought into effect very soon." He said things had improved considerably with the implementation of Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan.
 
"The dropout rate of girl children from schools has come down from 37.5% to 11.36%. This is a significant improvement. Once the (RTE) Act is put in place, it will provide a complete answer to the problem of child labour and their education," he said. 

"Not only do we have to work towards implementing the Act, but also towards eliminating child labour," 

The Minister of State ll for Foreign Affairs, Ambassador Bagudu Hirse has blamed rampant cases of trafficking and child labour on the porous security network at the nation’s borders and neighbouring countries.

The Minister bared his mind yesterday in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State at the National Campaign against Trafficking in persons and child labour organised by the ministry in conjunction with the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP).

Attributing the cankerworm to greed, poverty and self-seeking interests among youths, Ambassador Hirse complained that the unscrupulous persons along the international borders perpetuating the crime were really causing serious damage to the economy of the country.

He disclosed that an Economic Commission of African States has been established to tackle incessant trafficking in persons and child labour, especially at borders of member-states.

According to him, the Foreign Affairs in collaboration with NAPTIP, Nigerian Immigration Service, the civil societies and other law enforcement agencies had resolved to address the menace to give Nigeria a better image.

The Minister stressed that the national economy could not thrive with such cases of trafficking and child labour which are adversely affecting the society.He noted that Akwa Ibom State was the first state in the geo-political zone to mount the campaign and lauded the efforts of the state government in eliminating trafficking and child labour through cogent educational and medical services for the rural dweller.

Hirse challenged NAPTIP, the Nigerian Immigration Services, the civil society and the media on the need to brace up to the tasks of checkmating the menace.

The Secretary to the State Government (SSGG), Obong Umana Okon Umana who stood in for the Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio harped on the commitment of the state to reduce the problem of trafficking and child labour in the state.

The position of the state, Umana said led to the free and compulsory education, enactment of the Child Rights Law, the free medical treatment for children below five years and other measures.

The Chief Scribe of the state also added that the provision of micro-credit scheme and empowerment for youths, women, traders, farmers and the grant of N100 million to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) were steps towards giving value to the citizens for a better being.

The state government, Umana said had spent the sum of N200 billion on road constructions in the state with over 250 youths gainfully employed on skilled labour.

The SSG expressed satisfaction that the state was not chosen as first to host the campaign on negative posture, but for its favourable atmosphere for conferences and commended the ministry for considering the state for the campaign.

Also speaking, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Chief Ojo Maduekwe, represented by Mr. Simeon Uwa extolled the initiatives put in place by the Akwa Ibom State government to address issue on trafficking and child labour in the state.

On her part, the President, National Council of Women Societies, Alhaja Ramatu Usman, described the trend as a sin before God and promised that the body will continue to take the message to the grassroots to reverse the situation.

The zonal coordinator NAPTIP, South-South geo-political zone, Ms Elizabeth Ekaette who represented the Executive Secretary  of the agency, Mr. Simon Egede hinted that a total of 50 victims were rescued, rehabilitated and empowered with skills.