Parents should play ball in curbing child trafficking

Robin Muchetu, Senior Reporter
PARENTS are an important stakeholder in the fight against child trafficking in the country but a number of them have not been forthcoming in opening up channels of communication with their children on the use of social media, its advantages, inconveniences and risks.

The call for parents to monitor how their children use Information Communication Technology (ICT) gadgets at their disposal has gotten louder following several cases of child trafficking, kidnapping and other abuses that have been reported.

The Zimbabwe Republic Police recently reported the alleged disappearance and kidnapping of a 16 year-old student at a local high school in Harare. The suspicion is that he was lured via a social media group/syndicate which is targeting school boys for sodomy and sexual abuse. The group is said to comprise both young and old who communicate through Facebook and WhatsApp.

He was later located by Criminal Investigation Department (CID) homicide detectives in Bulawayo where he had been made to hide by a member of his social media group. He was later reunited with his family in Harare.

However, child protection activists say parents need to protect their own children from predators that are lurking on social media.

Ms Sunga Mzeche, the director at Hope for a Child in Christ (HOCIC) said lack of parenting skills by caregivers and reduction of protection services locally were factors leading to children straying into harm’s way.

“Families are responsible for child safeguarding. It is their role to ensure that children are well protected at societal level from all forms of violence. Despite the fact that the community as a whole should play ball in child protection, caregivers have lacked positive parenting skills which are crucial in child safeguarding.

“Child protection and monitoring systems in Zimbabwe are slowly declining. The child welfare departments used have structures in place such as the Child Protection Committees and Community Based Care Workers. The structures are no longer visible or as active as they were when they were set up due to lack of continuous support and capacity building. Most of them are not properly trained in curbing child trafficking. These go hand in glove with child tracing,” she said.

She said Zimbabwe lacked an adequate number of security personnel that were actively involved in ensuring that issues of child-trafficking were well handled.

“In most cases, these lack adequate resources in doing follow-ups when such incidents happen. You will find that there is over-dependency on tip-offs for such cases to be solved. Such cases are more prominent in border-towns like Beitbridge, Gwanda and Plumtree, and laws and systems have not been tightened to curb such issues. However, we have seen an increase in non-border towns as well with children disappearing from home whilst on their way from school or playing outside with friends. Babies have been stolen from hospitals whilst others abducted from home,” she added.

Social media and the internet have also opened up children to a lot of abuse in the name of educational scholarships.

“Children are promised scholarships online. Caregivers being miss-informed have involved young children in child trafficking without knowing. Children are later exploited in forced labor or sexually. Through the internet and advent of social media networks like Facebook, Instagram, children meet strangers and form relationships, with the hope of being assisted in terms of employment or education. These cases have increased in Zimbabwe and most of them are underreported and are further not taken seriously,” said Ms Mzeche.

She added: “A number of children have been trafficked to other countries because of fake omalayitsha. These people have managed to disguise a number of people into human and child trafficking as they promise to offer transport and easy ways of crossing the border. A number of children have disappeared or abused through this.

“Some of the practices in Zimbabwean cultures expose young children into child-trafficking. The practice of kuripa ngozi/uzimu and kuzvarira which may involve giving a family member particularly young children to another family to appease or avenge the spirits of a murdered relative or for marriage purposes. It creates more room and vulnerability in child trafficking,”.

The child protection expert said in Zimbabwe the approach to such disasters was reactive rather pro-active.

“Prevention is better than cure. For a country or community to battle child-trafficking, there is need to increase or take proper responsive and adequate preventative measures which are not limited to: Educating children on self-protection, this role should be assumed by caregivers at family level or schools since these are institutions which are actively involved in primary socialisation. Children should be taught on how to defend themselves when they suspect such incidences. Children should be taught to avoid playing in secluded or private areas without the knowledge of their caregivers or guardians. In developed countries almost every street has closed circuit television (CCTV), which helps in identifying and tracking offenders in real time,” she suggested.

Parents and guardians have been advised to monitor the content that their children browse on the internet and who they are interacting with on social media platforms regularly as that is where potential offenders can be identified.

Positive parenting is well embedded in ensuring that children are looked after, this, she said, can be done in restoring the old system where a child was a responsibility of the whole society. Ms Mzeche said her organisation has also been taking measures to ensure children are protected.

“As HOCIC we are implementing the safeguarding children from all forms of sexual violence program in rural Umguza, Bubi and Umzingwane. The project focus areas are improving child participation in child protection programs where we are encouraging children to take the lead in fighting or curbing child abuse in their communities through information dissemination in Sister2Sister and Brother2Brother Clubs.

“Parents and caregivers are also involved through parenting clubs. The program highlights the importance of positive parenting and its role in child protection. A lot of information has been shared and discussed with both the children and the caregivers on how they can protect themselves and other children in the community from child trafficking,” she said. — @NyembeziMu