By Adah Mansaray
As the holiday drags to a close, children have been reportedly trafficked to urban areas under the guise of providing them with good schools. Many of these children are today languishing in the city streets especially Freetown where they cannot afford the basics of life.
President Julius Maada Bio remains committed to investing in the country’s human capital as contained in his manifesto. By his moves, President Bio is ready but key stakeholders continue to sabotage the opportunity.
One of the victims, a single mother, Mama Adama explains that she is a mother of six children: four boys and two girls adding that clothing and feeding is a challenge.
“ It is not easy to be single parent at all these days. Had it not been for trading, I would have faced more difficulties trying to parent six children,” Adama cries out.
She went on to state that the eldest of her children helps her selling cold water in the streets to put Food on the table adding that none of her children went to school since she had no money.
Adama is in pain seeing other children going to school in the community and hers are at home doing nothing for their future. After several years of struggle, she said, her elder brother came to her rescue taking the eldest of her sons to educate him.
“Because of abject poverty I had long lived in, I did not even think how my child is going to be treated and I thought that, my Son is in the hands of my elder brother,” she lamente, but remains hopeful that her son is in safe hands and will be treated with love, but it did not happen at all.
“My son was treated like a slave as she not attend school and worse of all they gave him cold pure water and cold drinks to sell in the streets,” she explained.
She therefore urged government to enact and enforce laws aimed at fighting child trafficking by instilling more punishment against traffickers. Amadu Barrie, a businessman in Freetown said, he had no child, but believed that children were trafficked for sexual exploitation.
He said lack of education, human rights, economic opportunities and demand for cheap labour and sex are some of the Causes hindering children’s development in Sierra Leone.
Barrie also sees poverty as one of the main causes of child trafficking as poor families have no choice but to abandon their children in the hands of relatives who exploit them. He buttressed that illiteracy and lack of education make families more vulnerable to some of their relatives.
“Child adoption is more solicited by couple traffickers and dishonest adoptions agencies don’t have much trouble in finding potential clients. Many solutions are possible to put an end to child trafficking, including awareness campaigns as well as educational workshop must be carried out to end the scourge” he pleaded.
Barrie pointed out that access to information is crucial and families must know the risks involved. He suggested that government should strengthen the law enforcement agencies and Gender and Children’s Affairs Ministry to address issues of children in the country.