Child Trafficking: Does It Exist in Zambia?

Zambia

WHEN 16-year-old Fridah Bwalya (not real name) visited a local restaurant on what had started as a normal day, little did she know that her life would change forever.

Fridah, a resident of Zambia's capital city Lusaka, had earlier visited a saloon to plait her hair and decided to buy a soft drink before she returned home. It was then that a man she had never met before called her to his car.

"As he was a stranger to me, I was very sceptical about going over to his car. However, he looked very gentle and, so I decided to go and listen to what he wanted to tell me.

"He said he liked me, that I was tall and beautiful enough to make it at top model in South Africa. I refused, but he convinced me to accompany him and after three days he organised an air ticket for me," Fridah said in an interview with M-Films Production.

In South Africa, she was met by a group of men who took her to what she described as a beautiful place. There were other girls who initially she did not know had also been lured there in the same way.

They were all given a room each and they were all looked after well by the same men who gave them pocket money and withdrew their passports for "safe keeping."

Fridah only realised what she had got herself into when a man visited her room one evening and explained to her that he was there to teach her how to model.

"At first, I was reluctant, especially when he asked me to remove the clothes saying that was what models were expected to do. He also had some magazines from which he said he would draw the lessons.

"To end my shyness, he gave me a tablet that I took and shortly after I started feeling drowsy. He started kissing me, but I resisted before he became violent and eventually raped me," a teary eyed Fridah narrated.

She, however, managed to escape from her captors and later met a Zambian man who, after listening to her story, offered to help her get back home.

Such is the new face of human trafficking that is taking place in many countries worldwide and has stalked Zambia.

Because of poverty, many boys and girls are being duped by sophisticated syndicates to go to developed countries with promises of better jobs, but they are turned into sex workers or farm or factory labourers there.

A case of three Afghan teenagers who early this year were trafficked from Pakistan and were taken to Dubai, Kenya, Zimbabwe, before eventually being brought to Zambia by a highly organised syndicate attests to the growing problem of human trafficking.

The syndicate was said to have deceived the children's parents that the boys would be sent to school in the UntiedKingdom and the United States of America. One of the children said his family paid US$10,000 to a Pakistan man who promised to see to it that he got to his destination.

That, however, was not to be as everything drastically changed when they left their homes.

Two boys were arrested at the LusakaInternationalAirport when authorities discovered that they were using forged documents and were thrown into jail where they remained for close to two months.

The syndicate, after facing difficulties to get the other boy out of Zambia, confined him to a single room in Makeni residential area in Lusaka for 45 days. He later escaped through a hole he punctured throw the roof.

It was only some officials from United Nations Children's Education Fund (UNICEF) who secured the release of his colleagues from jail and handed them to the Anglican Children's Project (ACP), a non-governmental Organisation (NGO) that concerns itself with vulnerable children.

The children have been reunited with their families after enduring a lot of hardships very far from their homes, but the traffickers are still on the run.

According to the ACP executive director Felix Mwale, the problem of human trafficking is growing in Zambia. However, there are no verified statistics to bring the matter to the fore.

Mr Mwale also protests that sending to jail children caught up in such situations is not a solution.

This view is shared by Ms Petronella Mayeya from Save The Children-Sweden, who deplores behaviour of most immigration officers.

Ms Mayeya, at a stakeholders' consultative workshop on human trafficking and child labour held at the Chrismar Hotel in Lusaka this year, said most immigration officers mistreated children in such situations instead of helping them.

The problem of human trafficking is compounded by the fact that it is not easy to identify people who are being trafficked since most times they carry valid travel documents.

In the words of Ms Cecilia Chomba, from the Young Women's Christian Association, it has been difficult to detect cases of human trafficking because it involves people with a lot of money who have formed sophisticated links worldwide.

Moreover, Zambia, being a landlocked country, is highly predisposed to such activities.

Ms Clotilda Phiri from Tasintha, an NGO that mainly caters for former sex workers, says many girls running away from war-torn countries like the Democratic Republic of Congo have made Zambia as their transit point to economically superior countries where they hope to secure better lifestyles.

'But they end up in brothels in those countries and are highly abused. We received a report recently that one girl was found dead in a room in South Africa where she had first been abused by a group of men," Ms Phiri said.

There are also many girls who are being encouraged by their parents to shift to developed countries because they believe they would also benefit economically.

Nevertheless, Mr Bestone Ng'onga, the executive secretary of the Media Trust Fund, laments that girls in such situations are exposed to a lot of health risks and end up contracting sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS in brothels where they become bonded like slaves.

He is of the view that the news media could be used to heighten sensitisation on human trafficking, as well as to influence enactment of appropriate legislation that could deter would-be traffickers.

Mr Peter Kanunka from the Victim Support Unity (VSU) of the Zambia police service, said authorities could only know that there is a possible case of human trafficking if a complaint , say from parents, has been lodged.

Mr Kanunka, who also attended the consultative workshop, said prosecuting people involved in human trafficking is also difficult because, in Zambia for example, there is no provision in the Penal Code on human trafficking. Suspects could only be charged with such cases as abduction.

However, despite the mysteries that surround the problem, there are still solutions to human trafficking, according to some stakeholders.

Ms Zarina Geloo, from the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA) -Zambia chapter says the media should be helped anybody.

MISA-Zambia chairperson Kellys Kaunda also observes that the media in Zambia have not been highly sensitised on the matter, making some journalists think it is not such a big problem.

Mr. Kaunda also feels it would be of great help if some NGOs dealing with children had specialised units to specifically deal with the matter.

There is no doubt that children removed from their communities in deceptive ways suffer psychological and physical damage, according to the ILO-IPEC chief advisor, Brigitte Poulsen.

It is important, therefore that every individual should be involved in the fight against human trafficking before the problem grows out of proportion.

Similarly, the ILO Convention number 182 on the worst forms of child labour requires ratifying states to take immediate and effective measures to prohibit and eliminate the worst forms of child labour as a matter of urgency.

As the types of hazardous work involving children vary from country to country, the convention stipulates that individual governments , in consultation with workers' and employers' groups, must determine which occupation processes or work conditions are forbidden to children less than 18 years of age.

(This is a stakeholder-driven presentation to combat the worst forms of child labour in Zambia by media films production in partnership with ILO-IPEC partners in Zambia. This campaign is being conducted through television, radio, newspapers and mobile video)