UNICEF reported that thousands of children fleeing West Africa’s wars were living as street children in Guinea, along with many Guinean children returning from Liberia, where they had been recruited to fight in that country’s civil war. The experiences of these children provided a “picture” of the link between trafficking in children and armed conflict in Africa. “Children fleeing recruitment violence, and exploitation; crisscrossing borders, beginning as unaccompanied children in one place, becoming child soldiers in another, and refugee minors in a third.” The press release notes that if they can’t find the means to subsist, or if they are simply rejected by their families, they may return to the “bondage of war, servitude, and sexual exploitation.” (USAID.gov)

UNICEF said it was also trying to register and de-mobilize Guinean child soldiers, both boys and girls and provide them with vocational training and assistance in rejoining  their families. But a shortage of funding threatens to leave those halfway through the reintegration process high and dry, and the others without any prospect of support.

An estimated 11% of Sierra Leonean children are orphans (they have lost either one or both parents). Such children are prime targets for both internal and external trafficking. High poverty levels is the primary challenge to child trafficking; porous borders with neighboring countries and social conditions, including limited educational levels, harmful practices like forced marriages and violence are also contributing factors to trafficking of children.

Children’s survival and development are therefore threatened, and their rights to education, health and protection are denied.

In order to provide adequate response to this challenge, the Government of Sierra Leone has enacted “The Anti-Human Trafficking Act, 2005”. As mandated by this Act, an Inter-Ministerial Committee and Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force have been established.

A 2007 Anti-Human Trafficking Action Plan has been approved with the assistance of the ECOWAS, Anti-Trafficking Unit. The Government of Sierra Leone has also signed the “Multilateral Cooperation Agreement to Combat Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in West and Central Africa”. The UN Country Teams in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea,and Cote d’Ivoire along with the Manor River Union have identified child trafficking as an inter-country priority issue which requires integrated monitoring and response. Commenting on the occasion, the UNICEF representative Mr. Geert Cappelaere, expressed concern that “the situation of the 2.3 million children living in Sierra Leone (close to 50% of the total population) therefore remains dire.

The main cause of child trafficking is extreme poverty; parents are forced to push their children out of home to bring in some financial support-especially females. Prostitution is rampant in Sierra Leone because of this reason; we had a recent report by our field workers in Freetown that children at the age of 10 to 16 years of age have a higher percentage of being a prostitute than adults; these age groups are highly in demand because most of them are virgins. As previously noted in the article from UNHCR, those  individuals who can afford to pay prostitutes are as follows:

1. International business men of every nationality
2. National political leaders (includes military leaders)

A local worker’s income isn’t sufficient enough to use prostitutes on an ongoing basis; so as the police and military workers. Actually, the reason why policemen and military personnel in Sierra Leone are so corrupt is because they frequently go months without a salary.

References:
YGI Field Workers/field assessment team, Freetown, Sierra Leone December 2009
USAID.gov