A Programme Officer at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Mr. Emmanuel Kwame Mensah, has appealed to journalists to make follow-ups on stories on child trafficking they report until they are given the fullest attention and action they deserve.

This, he said, would help deter other traffickers from inflicting pain on young children and depriving them access to quality education.

Speaking at a Public Presentation of the Freedom Award in Accra, he said many child traffickers are not prosecuted because the stories are ignored after they have been exposed. He asked; “How many traffickers have been taken to court and jailed or prosecuted?” 

Mr. Mensah said many children are not just denied access to quality education but are also under serious servitude with some working to pay off the debts of their families.

Giving statistics on the current situation on child trafficking, he said over 50 million children across the globe are involved in child labour. Most of these children are mainly between 4 to 6 years.

He said the issue of child labour and child trafficking is real and the fight against them should be seen as a fight between adults and children. 

“Give direct voices of children as evidence of the circumstances and get all children involved in all aspects of campaigns against child labour and trafficking,” he advised.

He appealed to the government to take drastic measures to deal with the problem and help many children come out of the situation.

The West African Regional Coordinator of the Free the Slaves, Mr. Emmanuel Otoo, said there are about 27 million slaves globally.

The issue of slavery, he said, should be seen as a major challenge to every individuals’ development and therefore must be discouraged by all.

The Founder of Challenging Heights, an NGO that has interest in the well being of children, Mr. James Kofi Annan said there are over one million children engaged in child labour.

Over 242,000 of the above figure are in the worst forms of child labour and over 800,000 are not in school.

He described the introduction of the Capitation Grant, School Feeding Programme, Livelihood Empowerment Against Poverty (LEAP) programme and the Children’s Act (1998) by the government as very laudable and said the initiatives would help eliminate child trafficking and child labour in the country.

For his contributions towards the elimination of child labour and trafficking, Mr. Annan received an international award from the Free the Slaves, USA last September.

A 6-year old Kwaku Annan, a former child labourer, told ADM that he was sent to Yeji and was made to go fishing during the day and even in the middle of the night. 

He said he was always scared because he was not a good swimmer. “I lost many of my friends through fishing. They did not know how to swim so they drowned and I watched them go away without doing anything. I was scared myself, because I did not know how to swim,” he said.

Young Kwaku Annan, now a class four pupil is suffering from a “whole in heart” disease. 

BANGALORE: Although the government claims child labour has reduced considerably over the past few years, Karnataka is nowhere close to being a child labour-free state. This observation was made at a district-level orientation programme hosted by the labour department for its officials on Thursday.

Labour minister B N Bachche Gowda said the state was supposed to be child labour-free by 2007, but it didn't happen. "The deadline has been extended to 2012," he said.

He suggested the age limit for employment, which is 14 years now, should be increased to 16 years. "I'm happy child labour has considerably reduced. I hope that by next year, not even a single child should be seen doing manual labour in our districts."

"A fine of Rs 10,000 to Rs 20,000 and imprisonment up to 3 years should be reinforced," he added.

For the department, giving relief to rescued children is the most important job. Also, the officials suggested wages should be checked from time to time and middlemen who force children into labour be caught and punished.

Project director of child labour N Shivaramappa said: "Incidence of child labour has reduced due to increased field work by officials. In 2001-2002, over 1,984 child labourers were identified. Earlier, 57 occupations were prohibited to employ children, but after the October 2006 amendment, three more occupations -- hotel and restaurant, domestic help, slaughter house -- have been added.

Gowda said Below Poverty Line cards will be given to three lakh plantation workers.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Bangalore/Karnataka_not_completely_child_labour-free/articleshow/3634120.cms

When my master brought me from the village, he said that I will show that I deserved to go to school by proving my hard work at home. I was bent on going to school so I put my heart into everything I was commanded to do. I Swept, cleaned, washed, mopped, ironed, and fetched water from a public tap, two streets away, to fill the drums and basins in our house.

In-between these chores I had to go out and hawk sachets water in traffic and in the streets of the ghetto. I slept last and woke up first. I didn’t eat with my master, his wife and his children at table, I ate a small portion of foodon the floor at the back yard, after they had all eaten. Sometimes I could not work because I was always hungry, but I had to work otherwise knocks and the Koboko cane will descend on me.’ An 8 year old Togolese househelp narrated.

In most African families, wealth entails owning a houseboy or a house girl as they are called. This cultural practice that allows people to take deprived children from the remote villages, offer them shelter, food and sometimes primary education in return for their labor which is often child labor or even slave labor, is an issue that needs to be addressed with regards to human rights, child rights and international labor rights.

If a child is taken to the city to be used as a house servant, the poor village parents believe that with the education the child would receive he or she would have more opportunities in life and would be better off than their counterparts in the village, so they give up the child to whoever is offering to take them as a house boy or as a house girl and pray to the gods or to God for protection, blessings and prosperity. But sometimes, these prayers are never answered.

In many developed countries, it is considered inappropriate or exploitative if a child below a certain age works, excluding household chores or schoolwork. An employer is often not allowed to hire a child below a certain age. The minimum working age depends on a country’s labour laws; In the United States the minimum age to work in an establishment without prior consent and restrictions from parents is set at age 16.

The difference here is that in most African homes these children are not paid, their workload is rather cumbersome, they are often under 15, they face hazards and difficult situations, some are denied education and some are denied share care.

‘When my master agreed to take me to live with him in the city after my mother had pleaded with him, I thought it was the most generous thing a person could do for a villager. Like every other village child I would probably grow up a farmer or a hunter, get drunk off palm wine every night and father a dozen children with bread-money, but this kind man seemed to have come to my rescue. I was going to be his househelp, in return for an education at least up until secondary school and he promised to send my mother something, at least once in a while, for her upkeep. I knew that with an education and with the prospects that come with living in a city, my life would have a different curve. My poor mother prayed for him and blessed him beyond any curse.’

An estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labor, and more than half of that number are in Africa. Millions of children are engaged in hazardous situations or conditions, such as working in mines, working with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or working with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, laboring behind the walls of workshops, hidden from view in plantations.

‘After 3 years, my master registered me in a community school down the street. It was more like a place where street children passed time, the teachers hardly came to class. My chores and task were still a problem but I managed to deliver, so as to avoid any problem with my master or his wife. I liked school, I wanted to learn but I hardy had time to review my school work or do assignments and when I did poorly, my master or his wife would beat me like a thief. Sometimes I thought of running away, but to where? I wanted to go back to my mother, but how do I tell my uncle that, when the last time I asked about my mother, I was given the beating of my life, called an ingrate and denied food for two days. I wasn’t doing well at school, I wasn’t happy at home, I missed my mother, but I couldn’t do anything about it. All my mother knew was that her son was in the city and was in school, and will be a big shot.’

The United Nations and the International Labor Organization consider child labor exploitative, with the UN stipulating, in article 32 of the Convention on the Rights of Children: States Parties recognize the right of the child to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development. It is expedient that the domestic child labor situation in most of Africa is addressed as serious as every other child related problem in the world for humanity sake. Many children like this 8 year old Togolese child need protection.

http://www.nigerianmuse.com/20081025112159zg/articles/a-closer-look-at-domestic-child-labour-in-africa

ABOUT 17% of children aged 5-17 are engaged in child labour, a joint report by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and Uganda Bureau of Statistics has revealed. Of these, 96% are working in the agriculture sector and 27% in the manufacturing sector.

Addressing journalists in Kampala yesterday, Akky de Kort, the ILO chief technical advisor, said: “Not only is child workers’ education compromised, they are also vulnerable to workplace abuses and exposed at risk of work-related ill-health or injury.”

The report states that by 13, half of the children in the country are economically active.

Over 35% of 7 to 14 year-olds work while they attend school, while 3% of them do not go to school.

The report states that 600,000 children either drop out of school or do not attain formal education as a result of child labour.

“We need to embark on a holistic approach to combat child labour,” Kort said.

She added that the report was the first of its kind in Uganda and gives well researched statistics which would be used by policy makers to address child labour.

Kort stressed that it is everyone’s responsibility to tackle child labour.
James Muwonge of the Bureau of Statistics said child labour was highest in eastern and central regions, followed by western Uganda.

“We also found that girls are more likely to perform household chores than boys,” he said.

He added that several children aged between 7 and 17 were neither working nor studying.

“We suspect that these children are being trafficked or forced into illegal employment.”

Muwonge called for the establishment of more education centres to cater for school drop-outs.

Tanzania has the highest number of child labourers, followed by Uganda and Kenya. Other African countries that have high numbers of children involved in economic activities include Sierra Leone, Guinea, Togo and Zambia.

It is estimated that there are over 27 million people engaged in modern day slavery across the globe.

These include fishing, stone quarrying, sexual exploitation, domestic and ritual servitude, among others.

In Ghana, over 2.4 million children aged between 5-13 years are economically active with over 1.27 million of them engaged in child labour and over 242,000 of this figure engaged in its worst forms such as child prostitution, quarrying and domestic servitude.

Mr James Kofi Annan, founder of Challenging Heights, a child oriented NGO, presenting the "Frederick Douglass Award" he won to the media on Tuesday, entreated the government to become actively involved in how to combat child labour.

"We must conduct research to ascertain the true picture of the problem and also stop playing politics with issues that concern the welfare of children. This admission will lead to greater and innovative action to address the problem," he said.

The Mr Annan, who is a former banker with Barclays Bank, commended the government for the introduction of capitation grant and the LEAP program since they would help minimise the causes of child labour.

He said the Frederick Douglass Freedom Award was given to a survivor of the worst forms of slavery and now engaged in activities aimed at liberating people in slavery.

"The award honours the tremendous resilience of the human spirit and emphasizes that many of the survivors of modern day slavery go on to help others to freedom."

The award, which was sponsored by Free the Slaves, an international anti-slavery organisation, was held in the US about two months ago. As part of the award, he was given 20,000 US dollars and a plaque.

Mr Emmanuel Otoo, West African Coordinator of Free the Slaves, thanked Mr Annan for the initiative and urged all to come on board to fight against anything which militated against the well-being of children.

Child labour, like all other social phenomenon, is historically and socially conditioned. Its emergence, growth and nature of dynamics are intrinsically bound with the changing trends in production and reproduction of a given social matrix.
By and large, prior to the rise and consolidation of modern capitalism, children were primarily assigned the status of  helpers and learners in family occupations-often historically determined in third world under the supervision of the adult family member. Advent of capitalism rapidly transformed the scenario. The capitalist relations of production made superfluous the traditional practice of family members working as a team. The child labour was thus forced out from the familial environment.

When the business of wage earning or of participation in self or family support conflicts directly or indirectly with the business of growth and education, the result is child labour. Being a universal phenomenon and a harsh reality, it is both an economic and a social evil. Normatively child labour has serious consequences and implications for children, parents, families and society as a whole and as such it has been recognized as a social evil. In assessing the nature and extent of social evil, it is necessary to take into account the character of the jobs on which the children are engaged, the dangers to which they are exposed and the opportunities of development which they have been denied. Sociologists, Educationists and medical professionals unanimously consider it a curse to the young generation both physically and mentally.

India has the largest number of working children than any other country in the world. According to the statistics provided by the government of India, around 90 million out of 179 million children in the six to fourteen age group do not go to school and are engaged in some occupation or other. This means that close to 50 per cent of children are deprived of their right to a free and happy childhood. Unofficially, this figure exceeds 100 million but the fact that a large number of these children work without wages in fields or in cottage industries alongside their parents, unreported by census, makes it very difficult to estimate accurately. However, it is estimated that if these working children constituted a country, it would be the 11th largest country in the world.

  In Jammu and Kashmir, this figure is according to the unofficial estimates near about three lakh, but the official sources show it only 1,75,000. According to the official figures almost seventy percent child labour in the state is in Kashmir division. Majority of the child labourers are working in the unorganised sector including handicrafts, were female child labourers are working in majority. A large number of children work in cottage industries producing carpets, hand loomed cloth, embroidery, leather goods, plastic, bangles and sporting goods, etc. Most of the children are found in the agricultural sector. Poverty has often been cited as the reason for the child labour problem in Kashmir. While it is true that the poorest, most disadvantaged sectors of Kashmiri society supply the vast majority of child labourers. Child labour actually creates and perpetuates poverty as it displaces adults from their jobs and also condemns the child to a life of unskilled and badly paid work.

We talk of human rights with our parents, teachers and friends. But have we ever thought about the children who are forced to work and do not even have basic rights? Merely passing laws is obviously not the solution, as they need to be enforced, in which our state has a poor track record. What are the causes for child labour? One can attribute it to various factors including unemployment, low wages, poor standards of living, ignorance and illiteracy, social attitudes, and the like. Together they culminate in poverty and exploitation. The poor would rather have children who work to supplement the income.
There are many cases where the parents sell their children as bonded labour for a petty sum of money. Banning child labour therefore is not the solution, nor is the step by the U.S. and Europe to ban carpets from subcontinent.

Ignorance is one of the main problems; ignorance on the part of the parents who believe that with the children working, poverty will be eradicated; and ignorance on the part of the children who do not know their rights in this country. The working conditions of the children are inhuman and the wages given are also meagre. Eighty per cent of the children work in hazardous conditions.

At present, the legislations in India only specifically outlaw child labour in designated hazardous industries and bonded child labour, but both Article 24 of the Indian Constitution and Section 67 of the Factories Act explicitly direct that children below the age of 14 years are not to work in factories. In addition, the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act 1986 forbids the employment of children in specified hazardous industries.

The Supreme Court ruling of December 10, 1996, in an attempt to fill the loopholes left in previous legislation and to bring in judicial activism to social issues ordered the setting up of a fund for the child workers aimed at controlling and eventually eliminating child labour across the length and breadth of the entire country. While setting out a long list of child labour monitoring obligations of the State Governments, it also prescribes heavy fines for employers caught with children at work. In addition, India has ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In June 1998, when the International Labour Conference (ILO) debated a new Convention on Child Labour, a huge motivated and determined group of people swarm the streets of Geneva. Came from five continents and marched for five months, they comprised the Global March Against Child Labour. Though the march is spearheaded by a few select organisations working on various issues related to human rights, I think that the real strength lies with the general people. The pith of this movement is the actual masses. Issue of child labour has reached such demonic proportions that until the people at the grassroots level are mobilised enough, desired results will remain a far away dream. The Global March is but a fraction of the continuous efforts towards stopping child labour globally, and to make it a success.

Every person, individually or collectively, can affect a change if he is sensitive and observant to this growing menace. You may be a student or a teacher, a parent or a child, an employee or an employer, each of you can help make the March and its cause reach the cherished goal.

The use and abuse of the little and tender souls is an unpardonable sin. Simply blaming the ineffectiveness of the laws and lackadaisical attitude of the lawmakers will not absolve us of our responsibility. The roots of this growing affliction has the capacity and strength to grow deeper and wider unless every heart, every mind and everybody sheds the complacent attitude and makes small but significant steps towards the amelioration of the institution of child labour.

Author is Research Scholar (Sociology), Centre of Central Asian Studies, University of Kashmir.

Up to 1.7 million children in Kenya are victims of child labour despite the country being a signatory to international conventions against the practice, a forum heard on Monday.

Ms Grace Banya, an adviser to the International Labour Organisation - International Project for the Elimination of Child Labour, said the fight against the practice should be directed at child trafficking, child sex tourism and domestic labour.
She was speaking at the national children’s forum in Nairobi.

Ms Banya said child labour had mostly been attributed to poverty as surveys by the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics had shown that half of the victims are in households with an income of less than Sh6,000 a month.

Statistics released early this year show that 535,197 boys and 476,987 girls are involved in child labour, with a combined 773,696 involved in “worst forms of child labour”.

The forum was held to assess the impact of a project to rescue children involved in labour, which started in 2005.

PLAYING their favourite games with friends and living a stress free life is a normal style of living of every child but for Mohammad Ahmed it is a dream, which can never come true even on holidays.

Fourteen-year-old Ahmed and his 12 years old brother, Qasim, did not have any physical or mental disability but are among those children who cannot go to schools or even to playgrounds due to poverty. Both the brothers run a small business of stitching PECO and over-locking on female apparel in main market, Township.

Sitting on the sewing machine, Ahmad’s was busy working while he was talking with the scribe. “Yes I like to go to a school and play with my friends but earning for my family is my top priority,” Ahmed said, adding he also has to save money for the marriages of his two elder sisters and that is why he engaged his younger brother, Qasim, with him in this business.

“I started working as an assistant at a PECO and over-lock shop some two years back and now I am running a business with two machines,” he said, adding he usually earn Rs 400 to Rs 500 per day and gave all the money to his mother after going home.

According to the statistics of UNICEF, an estimated 158 million children aged 5-14 are engaged in child labour - one in six children in the world.

Millions of children are working in hazardous situations or conditions such as in mines, with chemicals and pesticides in agriculture or with dangerous machinery. They are everywhere but invisible, toiling as domestic servants in homes, labouring behind the walls of workshops or hidden from view in plantations.

The UNICEF data claimed that in South Asia, around 44 million were engaged in child labour.

Like Ahmed and Qasim, hundreds of thousands of children are working in the city and their working life was not formally recognized. This is one of the reasons why it is very difficult to estimate the true number of working children, said Khurram Habib, who runs an NGO for eliminating child labour.

He said children were working in manufacturing units and producing a variety of goods such as clothes, toys, matches boxes and other things. He said most of these units were small and the working children do not get paid proper wages. Besides, children also work as domestic servants or work in restaurants, hotels and shops, in small workshops, clean shoes or work as porters in markets or in family-run shops.

One can witness a number of children working in the streets many among them selling a vast array of small items.

Maria, who used to be a domestic worker, says, “I wake up at 6 am, prepare breakfast for my father then come to a house where I have to wash utensils, cook lunch, sweep and mop the floors and also buy things from the market.”

She said her two younger sisters also go to different homes and do the same work with her mother. Khurram said that whatever the type of work, most working children lack any job security, receive no pay if they are absent or ill and cannot seek any protection if they are abused or mistreated by their employer.

In general, children do not keep the money they earn (unless they live on their own) but the money they take home is often essential for the survival of their family.

when asked that if he would get an opportunity to go to a good school free of cost, Ahmed said he could not leave his sewing machine now because if he did so, his family would starve to death and his sisters would not get married.

A number of other children who are working in different markets and bazaars said they were working due to increasing inflation and poverty. Now it is the job of the country’s financial managers to find a solution to the increasing number of child labour in the country.

NEW DELHI: A 12-year-old Meena (name changed) would have ended up as yet another child employed in Delhi, had not a vigilant passenger on the trai

n from Chattisgarh to Delhi informed the police from this train about this child along with five others were being trafficked to Delhi.

Five children, two girls and three boys between the age of 12 to 17 years, rescued from the Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway station had been sold off to a trafficker by their guardians for anywhere between Rs 500 to Rs 7000.

On October 3, when the Durg Sampark Kranti train chugged into the Nizamuddin Railway station from Chattisgarh, the government railway police (GRP), along with NGO CHETNA rescued the children and arrested the three traffickers. A case has been registered with the GRP.

Ironically, the Capital on Friday marked two years of the ban on Child Labour after the amendments to the Central Act.

Fourteen-year-old Piyush (name changed) told the NGO CHETNA that on September 30, while he was playing, three men came and gave some money to his elder brother claiming they would provide Piyush some work in Delhi. Meena told the Child Welfare Committee (CWC), where she and others were produced before being send to a welfare home for care and protection, that four men brought all five of them to Delhi.

Director, CHETNA, Sanjay Gupta told timecity, "The rail route is most commonly used by the traffickers. Hence, the vigilance on the platforms needsto be enhanced,'' Gupta added.

The life of Koma people on the hills of Adamawa State has been characterised by controversy since they were ‘discovered’ in 1986. Recently, the natives accused some missionaries operating in the area of child trafficking. This is a result of allegations that about 89 children that left the community on the guise of excursion have not returned after over nine years. Matthew Onah writes on the state government’s effort to resolve the problem

Controversy has continued to tear the Koma people apart over the alleged missing 89 children as Adamawa State Government waded in at the weekend. Worried by the news and allegations filtering out of the Koma Hills over missing children and alleged human trafficking involving 89 pupils invited the security operatives to unravel the mystery. Parents and guardians had pointed accusing fingers at Mr. Kayode Momolosho, a private school proprietor in Jada Local Government Area of the state over the disappearance of their children.

But Momolosho, in his responses, have continued to claim that pupils were in various schools in the country and in safe hands. But, the Commissioner for Education, Recab Bongi, however, said the government was not satisfied with the response of the school proprietor. He told THISDAY however that the matter has been handed over to the State Security Service (SSS) and other agencies for proper investigations.

He said the state government took the decision, following the findings of a committee set up by his ministry. Bongi, who described the findings as frightening, said Governor Murtala Nyako had been briefed on the matter. He said security operatives have commenced investigations nationwide to identify the schools Momolosho, mentioned and find out whether the pupils are actually there.

He said government had taken keen interest in the matter, especially because Momolosho’s school was singled out among many missionary and Islamic schools in the area for child trafficking. Bongi assured that security agents were keeping vigil, to ensure that the remaining pupils do not fall victims, pending conclusion of investigation. However, in a contrary view concerning the  accusations that  missionaries were trafficking in hundreds  of  Koma children,  emerged from a group of parents in the area who maintain that the allegations that some children were  stolen,  were false and a mere propaganda.

The group of parents who addressed the press in Yola, last week, said the alarm over the stolen children was false, adding that those that floated the news were used by politicians who needed favour from the government. The parents who also accused the alarm makers of attempting to deny them the golden opportunity of what evangelism had done in the area, stressed that for several years they have benefited nothing from the government and would not want to be absolute losers, saying they have confidence in the missionaries.

THE Koma community   led by its district head, Mallam   Hammajoda Abba, had alleged  that hundreds of children have been taken away from the community in the last twenty years by religious organisations, under the guise of educating the children in the cities on exchange programme. They specifically accuse the project coordinator of Dominion Evangelical Organisation, one Pastor Kayode of spiriting away, over 89 children without the permission and consent of the community or the parents of the children.

But the parents who spoke on Tuesday claimed that many of their children in the custody of the missionaries still have a sense of community with them and that they have adequate records of their whereabouts/ performances in their schools, which they do communicate on phones with the children.

Speaking on behalf of the parents, Mr. Simon Yabo told journalists in the conference that on his part, his two children with the missionaries and that during the last holiday he spoke with his children. The parents faulted the confusion of the rumour of stolen children on officials of Jada local government council, whom they said has no welfare package for them except the collection of heavy taxes placed on them.

The parents who also passed a vote of confidence on the accused pastor stated that he was their ‘governor’ at Koma Hills and that they know, no other ‘governor’ except Pastor Kayode who sleeps on the hills with them and car for them.  The contention of the parents now is that the withdrawal of their children from school has never been in their interest, arguing that since politicians are sponsoring the village chiefs against evangelism in the area, they should bring schools to them as the missionaries have been doing.

The spirit of late Colonel Yohanna Madaki, former military governor of defunct Gongola State may not exactly be at peace with the recent happenings on the hills of Koma, the long forgotten hilly people on the verge of the Nigerian-Cameroonian border which he in 1986 with much military bravado drew attention of the world to their plight. The Koma people had existed on the remote  hills for ages without any trace of civilisation,  wearing leaves instead of  clothes and without education and health facilities, neither do they have roads through the rocky difficult terrains that will enable them fraternise with their brethrens  in other communities.

At their locations consisting of 39 communities principally of Koma Nassarawo, Mani, Tantalle, Tulli, and others tribes spread over the mountains had little or no contacts with modernity and had existed with their cultures and traditions preserved until a news item from then Gongola Broadcasting Corporation by a reporter named Aaron Artimas Abaare on the plight of the Koma people caught the attention of Yohanna Madaki. Since then, the Koma people have not rested.
The governor renowned for his human right postures even then as a military officer took it upon himself to go to Koma hills to see for himself and see the veracity of the broadcast of the reporter. What he met on the hills was not only astounding to him, he was shocked beyond words. The governor was surprised to see that a group of Nigerians were still leaving in prehistoric conditions even in his territory of governance. He drew the awareness of not only government authorities to the Koma Hills, but also the attention of other non-governmental agencies, especially religious organisations who perhaps, pricked by conscience went to Koma hills in droves.

The missionaries both Christian and Muslims established schools, hospitals, and other facilities that have today not only change the lives of the Koma people but eased the process of transforming their cultures and traditions fundamentally. The Koma people are today in the dilemma of whether the activities of the missionaries and government are in their interest or not.

Since 1986, missionaries have provided schools, hospitals, and other social infrastructures which have uplifted the standard of the living of Koma people although roads are still virtually non-existence and visitors to the area are forced to use motor-cycle on the cattle tracks on the hills or trek to the various communities. In spite of the good works of the missionaries in bringing civilisation to the Koma people. Today there is serious crisis ignited on the hills by the missionaries both among themselves and within the community that if not checked quickly will be capable of erasing all the good things and developmental projects that have transformed the lives of the Koma people.

In fact if the allegations that are wafting out from the Koma hills are in any way true, it will be one of the folly of humanity that the man is capable of doing good and evil simultaneously. Investigation by THISDAY revealed that there is a sinister plot among the various Christian missionaries to rubbish each other while they engage in their missionary duties. Recently, some missionaries in Koma hill had been engaging in child trafficking and mass movement of the Koma children from the community to the outside world. In fact, the allegations are that hundreds of the children taking out of Koma have not been seen in the last nine years.

The Koma community, which is in Jada local government area of Adamawa State, accused   the Christian missionaries of child trafficking, following the discovery by the community that over 126 children taken away by one of the missionaries have disappeared in the last nine years.

The Koma district head, Mallam   Hammajoda Abba, confirmed that hundreds of children have been taken away from the community in the last twenty years by religious organisations under the guise of educating the children under exchange programmes.  They specifically accused the project coordinator of Dominion Evangelical Organisation, one Pastor Kayode Momolosho, of spiriting away over 89 children without the permission and consent of the community or the parents.

Corroborating the district head’s allegations, the education secretary of Jada local government council, Alhaji Mahmud Abubakar stated that about 27 pupils in the primary and secondary schools of the dominion academy are yet to be accounted for by the school authorities. He further alleged that the organisations were fond of taking away children ostensibly on excursion or exchange programmes and not returning them.

Abubakar explained that the organisation was about to take away another 16 children to unknown places when the community leaders intervened following massive protests from the parents of the children. He called for more stringent guidelines governing the operations of such organisations in the area. According to Hamma Joda Abba, hundreds of children have gone missing from the Koma hills ostensibly taken away by the missionaries in the guise of educating them outside the community and that none of those children have come back to the community in the last nine years.

He stated that only recently the attention of the community was drawn to the issue of child trafficking for the first time when three children were found in Gombe State while waiting to be smuggled to a neighbouring country by an unscrupulous person. He stated that the member of House of Assembly representing Jada local government and other stake holders in the community had to spend large amount of money to bring back the children to the community.
Hamma Joda Abba said it was then that it dawn on them that a large number of children have left the community in the last twenty five years and they have not heard from them. He accused the missionaries of systematically taking away the children. Another Koma indigene, Aliyu Misawa who claimed his sixteen year old daughter was taken away by one of the missionary agents have not been seen in the last nine years. He said what ever good the missionaries might have done in the past was capable of being rubbished unless the children taken away are brought back.

To him, the traditions and cultures of the Koma people are fast being eroded as the children that are supposed to inculcate the cultural norms of the society are being taken away to other societies to acquire foreign influences which according to him are detrimental to the survival of Koma people. He also accused the missionaries of depleting the population of the Koma people through the massive children trafficking that have been almost institutionalised. Collaborating Misawa’s view, another Koma indigene, Mohammed Duso particularly accused Pastor Momolosho of arbitrary taking away their children and not returning them back to Koma people.

Incidentally, the entire child trafficking allegations by the Koma community came about as a result of a petition written by Momolosho, project coordinator of Dominion Academy Mani Koma, to the Adamawa State Commissioner for Education and copied to the National Universal Basic Education Board, Abuja alleging some irregularities in the admission and withdrawal of children from the school in Koma hills.

A stakeholders meeting was thus convene at the instance of the National Universal Basic Education Board to unravel why children were been massively withdrawn from the Dominion Academy. The Koma community led by their district head now had the opportunity of giving ventilation to their grievances. Speaking on behalf of the Koma community, the district head and the education secretary gave a graphic detail of their grievances, why children are being taken away from Pastor Momolosho academy.

Apart from the child-trafficking charges, another missionary, Gabriel Barau, accused the school authorities of engaging in immoral relationship with their pupils. According to him, one of the teachers in the Dominion Academy was allegedly said to have impregnated a school pupil. Barau said that he has been in Koma Hills for the last twenty five years. He accused Momolosho of negative influences stressing that Momolosho was unnecessarily arrogant and vain in his approach to issues affecting the Koma people.

But Momolosho, rebuffed all attempts made to make reveal the where-about of the 89 children, he admitted, he took out of the koma community on the educational exchange programme.  He also admitted to sending out 89 children to various schools across Nigeria like ECWA academy Ibadan, Redeemers College Lagos, and Cherubim and Seraphim College Ilorin. He stated that of the 89 children said to have been taken out and not seen for the last nine years, 37 are in schools in Lagos, 32 in Ilorin, four in Ibadan, seven in Abuja, one each in Port-Harcourt and Ondo respectively.

Although Momolosho decline to give the specific locations of the children, THISDAY checks however revealed that none of the children could be traced as they believed to be in private homes, names and addresses of whom Momolosho declined to give, even to the state government officials. According to Momolosho, some of the children are being trained by private volunteers who had kindly accepted to train such children.

He accused a section of the Koma community and some of the missionaries of being afraid of the impact the Dominion Academy is making on the Koma hills and hence the series of allegations against his mission. He said most of the pupils taken away on exchange programs by his mission are deliberately indoctrinated to come back to uplift the standard of living of the Koma people. The pastor said his divine mission is to serve Koma and nobody else and that most of those making the series of allegations are from Jada and Kojoli.

Momoloso also failed to give a time frame when and how these children will find their way back to their Koma community or even if they will ever return as the allegations are that some of these children might have in fact been long dead. According to Misawa, a pastor had approach one of the parent of one of the children taken away with an amount of money as compensation for a child who was said to have died on a plane crash. Misawa said the missionaries on the Koma Hills will have to be more open on the whereabout of the Koma children if they want to continue to operate on the hills.

The Koma district head stated that there is the need for government to seriously investigate the allegations of child trafficking against some of the missionaries for the Koma people to calm their restiveness. He said they are in a dilemma right now on whether to ask the missionaries to leave Koma or allow them to continue with their evangelical work.
Perhaps now that the state government has waded in to the controversy, the real truth about the unfortunate Koma Hills children would be unravelled.

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