US support for drive against child trafficking

The US Department of Labour has donated US $2 million to CARE International for a project aimed at fighting child trafficking in Togo by promoting the education of children, including existing or potential victims of traffickers. The four-year project seeks to increase awareness of child trafficking and the importance of education, and upgrade halfway houses for trafficked children so that they can become formal professional training centres. The initiative will also back preventive measures aimed at keeping vulnerable children in school. It will support institutions and policies aimed at reducing child trafficking, and help make intervention programmes sustainable. The project, known as Combat, will be executed in collaboration with three humanitarian NGOs that operate in Togo, Ahoefa, la Colombe and the local chapter of Terre des Hommes. Ahoefa and la Colombe, both of which are local, will be tasked with mobilising communities in the region where they operate, central and southern Togo respectively. Terre des Hommes will focus on the reintegration of trafficked children. The Minister of Health, Social Affairs and the Promotion of Women and Children, Suzanne Aho, welcomed the fact that the three NGOs were involved in the project because, she said, there was a lack of synergy between the various actors in the fight against child trafficking. "Some NGOs are getting rich off the backs of children because the funds allocated to the fight against child trafficking are not used for that purpose. That is a form of exploitation which I would like to denounce here," she said at the launch of the project on 5 February. "The partners of Combat must be acknowledged," she added, "especially the World Bank, which has given support for the establishment of local monitoring committees in the various villages." These committees serve as watchdogs with a view to preventing children from becoming victims of the traffickers. The charge d’affaires at the US Embassy, William Fitzgerald, stressed the need for coordination and cooperation between all groups involved in the fight against the trafficking of children in Togo, including the security forces. Fitzgerald said the United States and Togo would soon sign an agreement providing for specialised training and equipment for the Togolese ministries of justice and the interior to enhance their capacity to fight the practice. According to Martin Hotowossi, children’s law adviser on the Combat Project for CARE, the project will focus on children aged seven to 14 years old, and will target girls in particular. Benin and Togo are among the countries worst affected by child trafficking in West and Central Africa, where over 200,000 children are trafficked and/or employed as domestics, labourers, and other un- or semi-skilled workers, according to various estimates. The US Department of Labour has donated US $4 million for fighting child trafficking among Togo’s neighbours, the main destinations of children taken out of the country by traffickers. The projects are being financed under the department’s Child Labour Education Initiative, a US $4 million programme aimed at increasing access to and the quality of education in regions where exploitative child labour is practised.