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66 smuggled kids intercepted
10/05/2008 12:05 - (SA)
Ouagadougou - A total of 66 children who were being trafficked into Ivory Coast have been stopped at the Burkina Faso border, the Red Cross said on Friday.
The children, 49 boys and 17 girls aged 13 to 17, were picked up in four separate interceptions between April 16 and 26, Red Cross official Naba Jeremie Wangre told AFP.
The children were Burkinabes and Malians, and were probably to be employed in cocoa, coffee or cotton plantations, with the girls put into domestic service, he added.
Police at the Yendere border crossing between Burkina Faso and Ivory Coast handed the children over to a child care protection agency, and then transferred to the Red Cross.
Six alleged child-traffickers, from Burkina Faso, are now in the hands of the police, Wangre added.
"Child-trafficking is a massive phenomena in Burkina Faso," said Wangre.
No official statistics exist, but the Burkina Faso National Road Transport and Passengers Association estimates that around 1 500 children were saved and returned to their parents in 2007.
Wangre added that the suspected ringleader of the network had told police he knew the parents of the children and had signed a discharge with police to return them to their parents.
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