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Judith Phiri, Sunday News Reporter
THE Government has urged parents to use registered transport operators and ensure that children have the requisite travelling documents that allows them to travel across the borders during the school holidays to avoid cases of child smuggling and other illegalities which harm children.
The call comes amid concerns that most parents working in neighbouring countries were re-uniting with their children following the closure of schools on Thursday and were using illegal cross-border transport operators known as omalayitsha.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Mr Simon Masanga said cases of irregular migration of minors were rife during school holidays.
“We discourage cross-border movements of undocumented children. We have gone into memorandum of agreements (MOUs) with neighbouring countries such as South Africa and our teams meet on a quarterly basis to make sure that we tackle issues of children being smuggled by cross-border transport operators.
“We continue to engage South Africa on cross-border co-ordination to discourage such issues and among other things we also look into trafficking of children. Our biggest problem is with the Plumtree and Beitbridge Border Posts, the reason being that some of the parents with undocumented children are also themselves undocumented.”
Mr Masanga said they were working very well with the neighbouring countries South Africa, Botswana, Mozambique to ensure that children intercepted while being smuggled were safely brought back to their homes.
The Permanent Secretary said they were also working with the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) to ensure that children were documented.
“There was a mobile registration programme where we even provided transport fees for the parents to come and register. The registration process itself has been made easy where we used to require five or six witnesses to confirm that the child is truly of that person, that has been relaxed and if a chief or headman certifies that this child was born in a particular area that is enough to register the child.”
He said they were pushing for registration and documentation of the children as well as making sure that those who qualify to get passports get them so that they legally cross the country’s borders.
“It is sad that we continue to have parents or guardians who expose their children to illegal migration. Parents should avoid using the illegal routes as these at times come along with some complications.
“Zimbabwean authorities have adopted a zero tolerance to the smuggling of children and other illegal immigrants.”
Meanwhile, the Government continues to strengthen child protection co-ordination at district and community levels to provide a multi-sectoral safety net for minors.
Zimbabwe has a comprehensive legislative framework for protecting children against abuse. Section 81 of the Constitution outlines a Bill of Rights for children.
Recently, the Parliament passed the Children’s Amendment Bill, a major step towards enhancing child protection in the country. It brings important legislative changes to the existing Children’s Act 2001, with amendments that clearly define and regulate processes to keep children safe from neglect and abuse.
It also brings the existing Children’s Act in line with the Constitution and international conventions.
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