October 17, 2008
4:30
Usually when I look for current events on my topic, I find depressing stories about children facing difficult situations. So this week I’m happy to be blogging about something that’s going well with the youth of developing countries. From Guinea-Bissau to Senegal, child trafficking hasn’t been stopped, but it is starting to decline and I believe that’s a step in the right direction.
Most of the children from Guinea-Bissau have been sent to Senegal to become “talibés”. Talibés are followers of a religious leader, or “marabout”, who teaches the Koran. There are about 120,000 talibés in Senegal who are used as street beggars. The money that they earn is all passes on to the marabout. If the children don’t work as talibés, they will do domestic labor, become sex workers, or work in the cotton field.
Surveillance committees are starting to collaborate with local authorities to report suspected trafficking of children from Guinea-Bissau to Senegal. They are getting help from UNICEF and the NGO Plan International, which raises awareness within the enforcement throughout Guinea-Bissau and Senegal.
The biggest problem they are having with trying to fix this problem is getting support from religious leaders and groups. The religious leaders feel that they should be able to take care of the issue themselves. Another problem faced with the trafficking is trying to determine which children are immigrants and which are not. If they are unable to decipher between the two then it’s hard to tell if the numbers are going down or not.
I was glad to read that people are trying to stop something as serious as child trafficking. I only wish I knew more about the marabouts and other religious leaders in Senegal so that I could understand why exactly they encourage child trafficking. Maybe if I get a chance to look into it a bit more, I can blog about them and their effect on the children next week.
http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80928
2 comments:
yeah it's nice to hear something good as opposed to the bad. News doesn't always have to be so negative, it's just the bad tends to out weigh the good. I wonder what that is the way it is.
Child trafficking is a terrible thing, but things like this happen everywhere, more so in some places than others, but the scary thing is that it's happening around us without us even knowing.
M.A.Torres
Thats very encouraging. I myself have a pretty depressing topic of Poverty, but i love to hear about news about people doing something about it.
I love that they have not only eradicated child trafficking, but they are providing them with a safe and spiritual outlet as opposed to crime and prostitution. Hopefully this will provide them with opportunities to do something with their lives.
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