Focus on SC-UK family tracing activities

Miatta Sheriff and Maima Kromah are six-year old Liberian children. They have lived for several months in a camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and have no idea where their parents are. Well-wishers and relief workers care for them in the camp. Sheriff and Kromah are among thousands of Liberian children separated from their parents by fighting between government troops and rebels of the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) since 1998. The two little girls lost touch with their parents when the fighting displaced thousands of people from Tubmanburg in the western county of Bomi, earlier this year. Aid workers hope the girls' parents (Dao and Jebbeh Sheriff, and Baiyee and Jenneh Kromah respectively) are still alive somewhere in Liberia's IDP camps or in a refugee camp in a neighbouring country where some Liberians have fled. In another camp in Montseraddo, Jallko Yarsiah - originally from Kakata in Margibi County - spends sleepless nights worried about the whereabouts of his four-year old daughter, Annie Yarsiah. He last saw her in March when rebels attacked their village, forcing everybody to flee. He is not sure how his daughter was separated from the family in the chaos. "Internal and cross-border conflict in Liberia, has forced many families to flee their villages, disrupting their livelihoods," say reports from Save the Children - United Kingdom (SC-UK). "Many children have been separated from their families, some for up to 10 years. Many have experienced gross violations of their rights," The brutality of civil war has traumatised Liberia, according to the British-based nongovernmental organisation (NGO), which says a cycle of violence, compounded by extreme poverty and livelihood insecurity has permeated Liberian society. "Children are particularly vulnerable in emergency situations due to their susceptibility to exploitation, their physical weakness and dependence on adults," SC-UK reports add. "Risk of separation from one's family is a very real danger for children in any emergency situations. Separation is a devastating event for any child." Exploitation takes many forms. For example, between April and December 1999, SC-UK documented 145 cases of gross exploitation of children, and found that 40 percent of the cases were of sexual abuse and exploitation of girls. It was to address the plight of separated children like Miatta and Kromah, and of anxious parents like Yarsiah, that the organisation developed a family-tracing programme for the war-affected countries of West Africa. In doing this work, SC-UK works closely with partner NGOs, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), United Nations agencies, government departments, and community and local leaders. The ICRC manages a similar programme and maintains a database on persons unaccounted for as a result of the conflict in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Its delegations are actively involved in field tracing activities, together with national Red Cross and Red Crescent staff. "We have adopted a sub-regional approach, using cross-border systems," Ina Christensen, SC-UK programme officer in Liberia told IRIN. "Initially we focused on reuniting separated children with their parents but, years later, we realised that the issue of separation was part of a bigger question of protection." As of 31 July this year, SC-UK's database of missing and separated children in Liberia showed a case load of 3,177 children, of whom at least 100 were aged below five years and 1,128 were girls. Some 683 case files had been closed because the children had reached age 18 and were now adults, had died or their family situations had changed such as through getting a spouse. Mass tracing lists have been developed from the database, which contain details of children looking for their parents and parents looking for their children. With the help of camp managers and community workers, the lists are rapidly circulated throughout IDP and refugee camps under a colourful heading that reads: "Help a Child find his/her parent". "When the child or parent is located, we cross-match electronically from the database to speed up reunification," Christensen told IRIN in Monrovia. Between January and July, SC-UK was able to reunify 165 children (72 girls and 93 boys) with their parents, including 27 children below five years of age. Some 136 tracing requests were received at the same time. In addition, the NGO has recently worked with the Liberian authorities to reunite with their parents another 62 children who had been temporarily placed in orphanages around the Liberian capital, Monrovia. "In the past two months, the Save the Children team has been working with local groups to prepare safety-nets for the children," William Kollie, programme manager for social protection and welfare told IRIN. "We are also conducting prevention and separation training to raise awareness within the communities, especially against exploitation of the children," he added. Save the Children is worried that exploitation of the separated children remains one of the biggest challenges to be faced. In 2000, SC-UK organised the repatriation of a group of 23 children from Cote d'Ivoire to Liberia. Among the children were 13 girls aged 14 years and above, who had been living with local hosts. "Apart from two, the rest were found to have either experienced sexual abuse or had a baby through their care takers or somebody within the environment in which they lived while in Cote d'Ivoire - like a son or nephew to the care taker," Kollie said in Monrovia. Apart from the trauma of abuse, this type of exploitation exposed the children to the risk of infection with a variety of diseases, including HIV/AIDS. SC-UK is trying to alert communities on actions they can take now or in the event of worsening conflict to build an advance capacity for the protection and care of children, according to Kollie. Meanwhile, the agency offers some support when separated children are found, pending the tracing of their parents. Apart from the family-tracing programme, SC-UK is engaged in several other health activities in various West African counties; it trains traditional midwives who conduct at least 80 percent of the deliveries in rural areas, and supports outreach activities, including reproductive health care provision. In Cote d'Ivoire, the relief agency is trying to set up a system to monitor border entry and exit points. Other initiatives are planned for Sierra Leone and Guinea. Apart from separated children, SC-UK has paid particular attention to another group: the thousands of former child soldiers in West Africa. It has been involved in demobilisation and disarmament, and provided care and educational facilities for former child combatants. More information on SC-UK activities is available at: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk