The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
Erick Kabendera
13 October 2008
New York — A United Nations report says Tanzania is still a source and transit point for children trafficked to South Africa, Europe and the Middle East to engage in forced labour and sexual exploitation.
The report also says children were being sold for ritual purposes in the country, a charge that the Government, however, denied.
"There is also visible mobility of children around and within the country, with children being internally trafficked from rural to urban areas to work as domestic servants in nightclubs and bars," says the report.
The findings are contained in the report by the Committee on the Rights of the Child that was issued last week in Geneva during the 49th session to examine member country profiles on implementation of protocols on the convention on the rights of the child.
The meeting reviewed progress made by governments to limit the sale of children, fight child prostitution and child pornography. The Committee works under the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Tanzania ratified the protocol in April in 2003 and is obliged to submit regular reports to the monitoring
Committee on how the protocol is being implemented.
Committee members according to the report, urged for investigations by the government to bring to justice perpetrators who sold children.
However in minutes submitted to the Committee by the Minister for Community Development, Gender and Children, Mrs Margaret Sitta, the government indicated it had not been aware of any cases of children being sold.
In the minutes seen by The Citizen, Mrs Sitta asked that the state be furnished with the reports on the syndicate so as to be able to take immediate investigations on the crime.
The committee, however, says it is seriously concerned about lack of enough information on the extent of sale of children and child prostitution in the country.
It says lack of means for screening and monitoring inter-country children adaptation put them at risk of trafficking, sexual exploitation and pornography.
The Committee quotes from the International Labour Orgnisation Rapid Assessments of 2001 and 2003 that found out that more than 55 per cent of children involved in prostitution were orphans while 22 per cent were living in female-headed homes.
The large number of child prostitutes in Dar es Salaam City emerged as a concern while the mistreatment of children by police during crackdowns was also queried.
On efforts to streamline matters relating to children in general, the committee said that it was concerned with the low rate of birth registration which stands at 19 per cent, with only 11 per cent of children registered in rural areas, a fact that could hamper effective planning and monitoring.
A Committee expert and Rapporteur for the Tanzania country report, Mr Jean Zermatten, was reported as expressing concern over Tanzania failing to term recruitment of children under 18 a crime, either in the Penal Code or the Military Law, thus acting against the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
"Other Experts asked for further information or posed questions on a number of topics, including whether the Human Rights Commissioner of Zanzibar had jurisdiction over the Armed Forces, and the ability to look at cases involving child soldiers; the slow progress on the Children's Act and a timetable for its adoption.
Mrs Sitta, who was leading the Tanzanian delegation, said while responding to the committee's observations that a special committee had been formed to review the Defence Act and recommend changes.
"A national coordination committee had been set up already to ensure the harmonization of domestic laws with international conventions and protocols to which Tanzania was a party and to ensure domestication of the treaties. The committee had already started working on various children's laws," she said.
It asks the Government to ratify the Hague Convention No. 33 on Protection of Children and Cooperation in respect of inter-country adoption of children.
"The Committee recommends that the State party adopt targeted preventive measures to protect the rights of vulnerable children, such as orphans and children from single parent families, and safeguard them from becoming victims of all the offences under the Protocol," concludes the report.
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