NGO launches project to fight child exploitation and trafficking

A national human rights NGO in the Republic of Congo launched a programme on Friday, supported by the US and the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF), to fight the exploitation and trafficking of children in the country. The project, led by the Association panafricaine Thomas Sankara (Apts), will focus on the dissemination of information to, and the training of, government officials, journalists and civil society organisations. They, in turn, would then be responsible for disseminating this information to the public. "Originally, the project was to have targeted Brazzaville and the departments of Kouilou and Bouenza in the south, and Likouala in the north, with a financing of US $24,800 from the US government," Cephas Germain Ewangui, the association’s president, told IRIN. "However, with the additional support from UNICEF of 12 million francs CFA ($20,100), we can extend activities to the departments of Niari and Lekoumou in the south, and to Plateaux [in central Congo] and Sangha [in the north]," he added. The association said although a proper study of the situation had yet to be conducted in the Congo, evidence suggested that hundreds of children from Congo, the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo, as well as from West Africa were being used as domestic servants and commercial hawkers on the streets. "What is truly incredible is that all of this takes place right before our eyes, in flagrant violation of international charters and conventions ratified by our country, among them the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the ILO [International Labour Organisation] convention on child labour regarding minimum working and school leaving age," Ewangui said.