“Globally, an estimated 1.2 million children are trafficked each year, within
countries as well as across borders,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M.
Veneman. “Children are trafficked into prostitution, into armed groups to serve
as child soldiers, to provide cheap or unpaid labour, and to work as house
servants or beggars.”
Trafficking exposes children to violence, sexual abuse, severe neglect, and
HIV infection, she pointed out, while violating children's right to be
protected, to grow up in a family environment and to have access to education.
UNICEF called for punishing the perpetrators of human trafficking, which
generates an estimated $9.5 billion a year and fuels other criminal activities.
Concerted action is also needed to tackle the social and economic factors
behind this crime, which has its roots in poverty, UNICEF said. Children are
frequently lured with promises of good jobs in other countries or in cities in
their own countries. In reality they are “traded like commodities” to work in
brutal conditions and many children face beatings and other forms of physical
and sexual abuse from their employers.
Also marking the Day, Radhika Coomaraswamy, UN Special Representative for
Children and Armed Conflict, recalled meeting a 13-year old Congolese girl who
was abducted on her way to school, gang raped, subject to forced nudity, and
used as a sexual slave by a dissident armed group in Eastern Congo for more then
two years.
The victim, who became pregnant during her ordeal, is now receiving schooling
while her baby receives childcare. But Ms. Coomaraswamy said the girl has no
response when asked about her future. “Her silent answer and her whole story is
the most heartbreaking one that I have ever heard,” said the Special
Representative.
Citing another example of the trauma endured by African children in conflict,
the Special Representative described the ordeal of a former child soldier in
Sierra Leone who left his community because he felt “haunted by bad spirits” and
was re-recruited to fight for rebels in Liberia before working as a mercenary in
Côte d'Ivoire. He said he left Sierra Leone because there is peace there now,
explaining: “What I really know how to do well is fight and be a soldier.”
Ms. Coomaraswamy pointed out that courts are now trying Charles Taylor, the
former President of Sierra Leone, and Congolese fighter Thomas Lubana. The
battle against impunity, she said, is the key to end grave violations against
children.
“Children deserve protection. Violations of children's rights must stop,
impunity must end,” she said.
The Day of the African Child is celebrated on 16 June in recognition of the
day when, in 1976, thousands of Black schoolchildren had marched in the streets
of Soweto to claim their right to a better education, sparking a two-week revolt
in which more than 100 people were killed and thousands were
wounded.
16 June 2007
– The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) marked the Day of the
African Child today by calling on governments, communities and families to boost
efforts to prevent child trafficking.