Child Trafficking is a growing problem across the UK and in Africa. There are many complex definitions but for simplicity’s sake, we at AFRUCA define it as follows:
“The trafficking of children shall simply mean the movement of children for the purposes of exploitation and abuse.”
In the UK, the phenomenon of child trafficking was first noticed in 1995 by social workers in West Sussex Social Services. Young girls travelling unaccompanied
on flights from West Africa landing at Gatwick Airport would come to claim asylum. Put in the care of social services, days or weeks later, they would disappear from care. Before long, a pattern began to emerge: children, mainly Nigerian girls, were being trafficked to Europe via the UK to become sex workers. A lot of these girls spoken to by social services talked about owing their exploiters huge sums of money which they have to pay back otherwise terrible things would happen to them or their families back home. Since that time, many more cases have come to the fore. These days, child trafficking for many other purposes has come to the attention of charities and government agencies across the country. African children are being transported to the UK to be used as slaves in many different ways.
In realisation of the growing problems of child trafficking, the UK government has put in place a law to tackle the problem and criminalise the practice. Child traffickers – those who transport children so they can exploit them – can go to jail for up to 14 years for committing this crime.
Published : 30th June 2010
Publisher : Afruca [ More From This Publisher ]
Rights : Afruca
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