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Moz needs teeth for traffickers
07/02/2008 22:11 - (SA)
Maputo - Mozambique lacks documentation in the cases of children rescued from traffickers - and there is no binding legislation in place to prevent trafficking, said Thierry Delvigne-Jean of the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) in Mozambique on Thursday.
"Cases of child trafficking come up once in a while, but the problem is that we do not have recent figures to show if the trend has increased or not," he said.
The last research on cases of child trafficking was done by the International Organisation on Migration in a report published in 2005.
The report noted that at least 1 000 Mozambican children were trafficked each year, some of them mainly to South Africa - where they ended up in prostitution or as underpaid domestic workers.
Delvigne-Jean said Unicef had been working with the government and other local NGOs in the development of national legislation of children's rights.
"The Children's Act bill could be adopted in March by parliament. Once it is approved, Mozambican children will have protection from traffickers and abusers," he said.
The absence of effective legislation to address the violation of children's rights was also a challenge faced by child-rights activists as they tried to document cases of abuse, said Delvigne-Jean.
He added that Unicef was campaigning to have the Children's Act developed along the same lines of international law used to protect the rights of children throughout the world.
He also said that Unicef was involved in the training of police and immigration officers on how best they could handle victims of trafficking.
Recently, 40 children were "rescued" by police officers after reports indicated that the children were being trafficked.
The children were travelling in a truck from the northern provinces of the country.
Police initially arrested seven people as they continued with their investigations into the allegations.
On Wednesday, André Cumbe, deputy attorney general was quoted in the local media as saying authorities were not treating the case as trafficking.
Parents paid for transport
He said, however, the transporters of the children could be found guilty of charging large sums for transporting them under deplorable conditions.
Police had said the parents of the children had paid sums of between $100 (about R770) and $150 dollars for each of the 40 children to be transported to their destination.
Unicef's national plan of action on children for the period 2006 to 2010 calls for the establishment of specific activities to protect children from violence, sexual exploitation and trafficking.
The activities include public sensitisation, training of law enforcement officers to be able to identify and detain child traffickers - and the establishment of rigorous mechanisms to monitor sex tourism and traditional practices which encourage sexual exploitation of children.
- SAPA
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