By Musa Paul Feika
33% of children between ages 5 and 17 have experienced child trafficking in the Eastern part of Sierra Leone with 36% undergone child labour, Social Welfare Minister, Melrose Karminty says.
The minister made the statement last Monday during a training session for journalists on human trafficking and child labour at New Brookfields Hotel in Freetown.
The training was geared towards breeding and orienting journalists to report on human trafficking and child labour.
Citing a new collaborative report from universities of Liverpool and Georgia, Children between ages 12 and 17 are the most vulnerable to human trafficking.
The one-parent family, she said, was the major cause of the incidents.
“Sierra Leone is currently a source, transit, and destination for trafficked women and children who are exposed to forced labour and sexual exploitation,” she asserted while referencing a 2023 report from the Department of States Trafficking in Persons.
She said latest global estimates by International Organisation for Migration showed that 28, 000, 000 (twenty-eight million) people were trapped in various forms of trafficking.
Recognising the role of the media in combating human trafficking and child labour, the minister urged journalists to help in addressing human trafficking and promote nation-building.
She underscored her ministry’s role in addressing human trafficking and child labour in the country evidenced by the establishment of the National Task Force on Human Trafficking in 2022.
The Task Force, she said, had been waging an endless war on human trafficking and migrant-smuggling.