4 barbaric practices against African children that need to stop now

Child trafficking/labour

It is not uncommon to find children engaged in work that is beyond their capacity due to their age. Even though there have been several campaigns and initiatives to combat child trafficking, it still remains a problem for children in Africa.

Children from poor homes are usually ‘sold off’ to people who use these children as labourers on their farms or as sex workers and domestic house helps. Their caretakers often subject them to violent treatments which include starvation. A 2014 study by International Justice Mission reveals that more than 57.6 per cent of children working on the Southern Lake Volta were trafficked and forced into labour with a majority of them being young boys.

Likewise, a U.S. State Department’s Trafficking in Persons Report also showed that girls as young as eight years old were working in brothels in and around Addis Ababa’s Central Market in Ethiopia. In another report by the same agency for Nigeriens, it was reported that boys in Niger were subjected to forced labour which included sending them off to neighbouring countries to engage in begging while Nigerien girls were placed in domestic servitude.