Building a network against child trafficking

In May 2002, Anti-Slavery International launched the first network of West and Central African child rights organisations in the region to increase their effectiveness in fighting against child trafficking in the region.

Tens of thousands of children are trafficked in West Africa each year. Although the majority are boys, the largest single employing sector is domestic work and about 90 per cent of all child domestics are girls. They are live-in servants, and unlike child domestics in other parts of the world where most are teenagers, in West and Central Africa most are children are as young as five years old.

In 1997, Anti-Slavery International's partner in Togo, WAO Afrique brought the relationship between child domestic work and trafficking to Anti-Slavery's attention. Even though the practice apparently first became significant in 1987, it was not until the mid-1990s that local organisations became aware of the problem.

The work of Anti-Slavery International and its partners during the 1990s increased awareness of child domestic work in Benin and Togo, and in 1999, Anti-Slavery International and our Benin partner, Enfants Solidaire d'Afrique et du Monde, carried out the first research to examine both sides of the trafficking process between Benin and Gabon. But research showed that the problem extended beyond these countries and that it needed to be addressed regionally.

To effect real change, public opinion throughout West Africa had to be convinced that employing young children as domestics is unacceptable and that there are specific ways child domestics should be treated.

Part of the problem, is the perception among countries in West and Central Africa that domestic service is a 'safe' form of employment for girls because it is based in the home. In reality, this work involves a wide range of risks and hazards and the myth of its being safe needs to be dispelled. Children are forced to work long hours and because the work takes place behind closed doors they are relatively 'invisible' and are under their 'employer's complete control, 24-hours a day. Children are at risk of violence and sexual abuse. In some cases, they manage to escape, but because they do not have the means to return home - or in some cases they may not remember where their family lives or they fear their family may not accept them back - they end up on the street, putting girls in particular, at risk of being forced into prostitution.

Because many domestics are trafficked across borders more than one country is involved in the problem, laws and awareness raising projects need to be co-ordinated and consistent. In order to achieve this, Anti-Slavery International chose partners in five countries from which children are trafficked: Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Niger and Togo and from one of the main countries children are trafficked to, Gabon, in order to develop a region-wide network. Each organisation has relations with other national groups, which will enable the development of a common strategy, the sharing of information and campaigning for this abuse to stop.

Research carried out at the start of the project in each of the countries found that generally, the margins of acceptable treatment of child domestics were broad. Society and the law tended only to condemn the most extreme forms of abuse, such as maiming or killing with no attention being given to other aspects of child domestics' predicaments. Anti-Slavery International and its local partners felt governments needed to implement specific legislation relating to: minimum age of employment, the maximum hours of work permitted, guaranteed time for schooling and recreation, and the amount of money earned and way children were paid. Some are not paid, but when they are, many do not handle their earnings. The money is commonly given to their parents or to 'aunties' who are, in reality, recruiting agents - traffickers. Beatings and other forms of corporeal punishment also need to be expressly prohibited.

Originally, the network comprised organisations from the founding six countries: ESAM (Benin), GRADE-FRB/ABSE (Burkina Faso), Alten and Opten Yara (Niger), C.O.C.T.E. and Ileda (Gabon), Soned (Ghana) and WAO-Afrique (Togo), as well as child rights organisations in Morocco, local organisations with which each has contact, and ILO/IPEC organisations. By the end of 2002, organisations from Guinea-Conakry, Mali and Senegal joined, further expanding its scope and effectiveness.

In December 2002, members named the network the Action Group Against Child Work and Trafficking/Child Domestic Workers. They agreed a Code of Conduct setting guidelines that state a minimum age limit for child domestic work and defining acceptable child domestic work and conditions. This Code ensures organisations across the region will be pressing governments and employers to implement clearly defined safe conditions for child domestics.