In 2005 and 2006 UNICEF arranged for children and young people who had been trafficked while under 18 years of age to be interviewed in their home countries: Albania, Kosovo, Republic of Moldova and Romania. Based on these interviws, the UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, prepared this report to stimulate thinking and action.

The study:

• Illustrates, through concrete examples, the complexity and dynamics of child trafficking.
• Provides insight into how the children and young people perceived the assistance they were offered
• Identifies the extent to which the participating children and young people, at the time they received assistance, had been questioned about their views and given the opportunity to participate in decisions regarding their situation.
• Provides an understanding of the importance of listening to children and young people and involving them in the design and implementation of actions to prevent and address child trafficking.

This report stems from a study initiated by the United Nations Children’s Fund’s East Asia and Pacific Regional Office (UNICEF-EAPRO). The objective of the study was threefold: to improve the knowledge base on children affected by armed conflict, to devise protection strategies for children in situations of low-intensity conflict, and to involve participation of children and young people. Indonesia, the Philippines, and the Thai-Myanmar border were selected as the areas for study.

Africa KidSAFE is a network of national and international organizations in Zambia working with children who are found on the street (commonly referred to as “street children”) and children who are at risk of moving to the streets as a result of social and economic pressures. The network’s 22 member organizations operate autonomously, but work together in a spirit of collaboration, with common objectives, and under a set of shared guidelines. The network covers Lusaka, Copperbelt, Central and Southern Provinces. With support of the Displaced Children and Orphans Fund and PEPFAR, Project Concern International (PCI) provides coordination, technical support, training, and limited financial and material assistance to the member organizations.

As part of its prevention strategy, the Africa KidSAFE network engages in activities that include street outreach, mobile health, reintegration, residential care, and economic empowerment initiatives. The economic empowerment approach Africa KidSAFE employs focuses on caregivers, with the intent of strengthening the households into which street children are being reintegrated. This includes, but is not limited to, economic strengthening. In target areas, community capacities also need to be strengthened regarding prevention of unnecessary family separation, the identification of child neglect and abuse, and monitoring and support for reintegration.

PCI works in collaboration with, and has provided resources to the Christian Enterprise Trust of Zambia (CETZAM), leaders in microfinance for the poor in Zambia, in order to improve access to microcredit for an estimated 2000 volunteer caregivers who receive support from PCI and/or its partner organizations in the Lusaka and Copperbelt Provinces as part of Africa KidSAFE. Caregivers assist orphans, at risk youth, and people living with HIV/AIDS, and their work is critically important to the country’s public health infrastructure. Moreover, because caregivers are volunteers, finding affordable ways to motivate and incentivize them is crucial to their success and retention within the program.

PCI has identified the lack of microcredit and business training as major impediments to the livelihood security and retention of caregivers, many of whom are widows or women of otherwise limited means, who strain under the financial burden of caring for large numbers of children and/or HIV+ friends or relatives. Most caregivers currently undertake some informal microenterprise activity or small business, and PCI recognizes that there is a tremendous unmet need for microcredit lending among these individuals. With this need in mind, Africa KidSAFE is beginning a savings-led economic empowerment initiative in October 2008.

Project Concern International
info@pcizambia.org.zm

January 2005 to September 2010