2010 seen as child-traffic lure

2007-05-01 21:23

Bianca Silva

Cape Town - The 2010 Fifa World Cup could provide an ideal market for child traffickers, warn child-rights organisations - especially since South Africa has no specific legislation criminalising the growing scourge.

Up to 1 700 children go missing in South Africa every year - of whom about 10% are never found.

Experts say the only legislation criminalising human trafficking of any sort in South Africa is contained in the Children's Act of 2005, which is still not fully operational.

Joan van Niekerk, the national co-ordinator of Childline, said although the first part of this act had been passed, the regulations for it were incomplete.

The second part of the act, the Children's Amendment Bill, which deals with the competencies of provincial government regarding children's services and the implementation of regulations, has not yet been passed through parliament.

Pressuring the government

Agnes Muller, social work manager in the department of social development, said until both parts of the act were finalised and passed, South Africa remained dependent on the existing Child Care Act of 1983, which contained no references to trafficking.

Child rights organisations are pressuring the government to speed up the passing of legislation.

Patric Solomons, director of Molosongololo, an NGO that deals with children's rights, said that even if the act was passed this year, which seemed unlikely, there were fears that it wouldn't be properly implemented for the next three to four years.

Muller predicted that it would be five to eight years until there were enough human resources, funding and enough trained social workers for the act to be properly implemented.

Samantha Waterhouse, of child-rights organisation Rapcan (Resources Aimed at the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect) said that if South Africa had complied with the United Nations protocol to prevent trafficking in people, signed in 2004, there would be no need to create laws in a piecemeal fashion.

"Gap measures do not amount to comprehensive legislation," she said.

Child-rights organisations say legislation aimed at protecting children is not being given priority.

Co-ordinating a strategy

"We are concerned that we can pass other laws so quickly, but when it comes to children the process is lengthy and tedious," said Solomons, who pointed out that the SA Law Reform Commission began research for the Children's Act in 1997.

Mishack Magakwe of the department of justice and constitutional development said although there was nothing in the constitution that prohibited human trafficking, a position paper on this was being developed by a unit in the department's court services branch.

Magakwe said the department, together with the department of social development, had been given the task of co-ordinating and implementing a strategy to combat trafficking.- West Cape News

- African Eye