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NGO in Nigeria Says Child Abandonment Promotes Trafficking

An Non-government organsiation Child Rights and Rehabilitation Network (CRARN) has linked the high rate of child trafficking in Akwa Ibom State to frequent cases of abandoned children.

Mr. Sam Itauma, the CRARN President, said in Eket that 70 percent of cases of trafficking in the state involved stigmatised and abandoned children, wrongly labeled as witches. Itauma spoke to newsmen at a symposium on “Preventing Abandonment of child Trafficking Today (PACT)”.

He identified Esit Eket, oron, Eket and Mobo local governments as areas with the highst number of cases of child abandonment. Itauma said that the children were abounded based on the belief that they possessed spiritual powers.

According to him, such innocent children were tortured in some churches and forced to make confessions so that prayers of deliverance would be said for them. He expressed regret at the involvement of so called men of God in the social ill.

“Recently, the Police in Owerri arrested a woman who was in possession of children of Akwa Ibom origin and who claimed that the children were brought for deliverance from witchcraft. Itauma called on the Akwa Ibom State Government, Christian Association of Nigeria and Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria to team up and regulate the activities of churches.

Also peaking, Mr. Gary Foxcroft, Executive Director, Stepping Stones Nigeria, called for close collaboration with national Agency for the Prevention of Trafficking in persons (NAPTIP) to check child taffficking. He also called on Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly to pass the child rights act to provide a legal framework for the protection of the rights of children.

Foxcroft said that if stigmatized and abandoned children were not transformed they would grow up to become miscreants. 

Adapted from: "NGO says child abandonment promotes trafficking." The Tide Online. 4 December 2007.