Thomas Changopa
16 April 2007
opinion
ZAMBIA is among the countries in the sub-Sahara region faced with a twin problem of poverty and HIV/AIDS.
The twin problem has really under-mined the capacity of many families to accumulate or make adequate use of the little resources at their disposal and pursue viable livelihood strategies.
The quality and quantity of human capital in many homes are diminishing due to death, illness and other calamities. In most cases you would find that orphans and the vulnerable children are required to help in terms of food and other necessities at home.
With the damage that poverty and HIV/AIDS has done to human life, stealthily, human trafficking is busy stripping off the social and economic development of the country. This is a time bomb, if left unchecked. More disaster to human is coming our way!
This is a fast growing business both externally and internally- human trafficking needs to be addressed seriously in our country, as the bigger population is wallowing in abject poverty.
The trafficking of human beings has brought in much misery in many homes and communities because it is robbing the new generation of knowledge and skills that are passed on from their parents to them.
And many victims are youths who are in their productive ages. The most affected are orphans and vulnerable children who are taken to work as domestic workers.
Many of these children whose parents have died from HIV/AIDS or related diseases lack parental care and guidance, cultural, social and family ties and life skills that are usually passed on from generation to generation.
They are deprived of their childhood love and care and many of them lose the opportunity to go to school.
They become victims of human trafficking because they tend to be attracted to big cities and towns, with the view of earning a living.
Most of them are exposed to illicit activities and they increase the number of street kids. With the increasing social and economic hardships they go through always lead them to look for means of survival.
The issue of human trafficking should be fought aggressively in the family and the community.
And the targeted places should be orphanages, schools and the nightclubs.
In orphanages human trafficking education should be intensified, because the vulnerable and run-away children fall victim to the vice.
In schools, pupils should be taught the danger of human trafficking, because they become victims of fate, when looking for a living after completion of their education since jobs are scarce in the country.
In night-clubs sex workers should be targeted because they fall prey to offers being given.
The family should be recognised as playing a key role and special forces should be placed there.
Human trafficking is ravaging, leaving the economic apart, the most-far-reading are being already felt and will continue to be in those countries, including Zambia where the majority of people are disadvantaged and vulnerable through poverty and HIV/AIDS.
Foreigners cheat many young ladies into marriage, but at the end of the day, when they happen to go to the country where, the man comes, the woman is intimidated, enslaved and abandoned. So we need to stand up and fight human trafficking.
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