Meeting on Collaboration and Partnerships in Lilongwe, Malawi
At the beginning of this month, Liberty Shared, in collaboration with the Malawi Network Against
Trafficking (MNAT) held a meeting on Collaboration and Partnerships in Lilongwe Malawi on 2nd October 2019. Some of the objectives of the meeting included; discussing the current existing means for sharing information and experiences between CSOs and relevant anti-trafficking networks and stakeholders and identifying ways in which Freedom Collaborative can potentially supplement those existing mechanisms, identifying technical and capacity challenges and identifying human trafficking data gaps in Malawi.
Participants included members from Eye of the Child, Global Hope Mobilization, Fula Africa, Chance for Change, Love Justice, CADECOM, Evangelical Association of Malawi (EAM), Epi-Centre IPI, CRAPAC, Youth Net And Counseling (YONECO), MAGGA and Centre for Youth Empowerment and Civic Education, Norwegian Church Aid among others. Several needs were identified during the meeting, leading to a collective agreement on the way forward and upcoming training in supporting MNAT’s coordination and partnerships efforts.
Kenyan Governor signs declaration at Leiden University to protect the rights of children
On 6 September 2019, the Governor of Murang’a County, Mwangi wa Iria, signed a declaration at Leiden University, The Netherlands, in the presence of Prof. Ton Liefaard, UNICEF Chair of Children’s Rights, Prof. Julia Sloth-Nielsen, the former Vice-Chair of the African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and Stahili Foundation. In this ground-breaking declaration, dubbed the “Leiden Declaration”, the Governor sets out a series of major commitments to protect children, including children who have been trafficked to orphanages, by instituting resourced care reforms as an integral part of priorities in Murang’a County. The Governor's efforts go beyond care reforms and include establishing a children’s office and and an ombudsperson as well as enacting a children’s bill to enhance protection.
The Governor - who is also the Vice-Chair of the national Kenyan Council of Governors - has promised to implement wide-ranging reforms to tackle poverty, family separation and exploitation. A 2017 CNN Freedom Project report on the trafficking of children to orphanages in Murang’a County had a significant impact in bringing the inherent risks of institutionalisation to a wider audience. These concerns led Stahili to actively engage the Governor, who has taken up the issue with vigour and has promised to urge his fellow Governors to implement similar reforms to protect children from neglect, violence, and exploitation.
The Leiden Declaration comes at an important time. This year, the United Nations General Assembly Resolution on the Rights of the Child will focus on children without parental care for the first time. This is an important opportunity to place a vulnerable and usually overlooked population of young people on the global agenda, review progress made in preventing unnecessary family-child separation and providing appropriate family-based alternative care, and recommend specific actions to strengthen care reforms globally (which will also help combat trafficking to and from orphanages). The Governor's Declaration is also particularly timely as 2019 is the tenth anniversary of the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children and the 30th anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Other regional updates
HAART Kenya reached a total of 103 (Male 48 Female 55) first responders during five workshops and one stakeholder forum conducted in Nairobi and Tharaka Nithi counties. The workshops sensitized the duty bearers on human rights, human trafficking, offenses charges under the counter-trafficking in person’s act of Kenya 2010 and safe migration measures to consider before and after migration. The Children Officers from Nairobi County have requested HAART Kenya to conduct more awareness workshops specifically targeting migrant domestic workers from Karamojong community in Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania. And, HAART Kenya and International Rescue Committee- IRC partnered to conduct a stakeholder’s discussion on matters of human trafficking and refugees. The discussion was geared towards mapping forms of trafficking in the Refugee space, push factors for trafficking, adequacy of the Kenyan legislative framework and ways of preventing incidences of human trafficking among refugees. A detailed write up of HAART's activites during the past month can be found here.
Candle of Hope intercepted victims who were illegally transported from Somalia to Kenya and in partnership with the office of the Director of Public Prosecution (ODPP) and the Department of Criminal Investigations (DCI) were able to secure a safe house. Some of the challenges identified during this case include; (a) lack of adequate safe houses in Nairobi. There are limited safe houses and most are congested, or incur high costs in providing accommodation and food (b) It was identified that there are challenges in providing safe houses for Somali victims of trafficking, due to certain stereotypes. Since its inception, the ‘Girls for Girls’ and ‘Hope for the Horn’ awareness campaigns in Kenya and Somaliland have covered a lot of ground. Target groups include vulnerable groups at risk of trafficking and victims of sexual exploitation and providing awareness to the communities on how to identify human trafficking, the difference between smuggling and trafficking and providing information on safe migration. Some of the challenges encountered during the campaigns include; poor road infrastructure in target areas, insecurity in Northern Kenya and lack of funds to pay local mobilizers to sensitize the communities. Find COF's monthly bulletin here.
The Counter Human Trafficking Trust - East Africa (CHTEA), formed a Middle East Survivor’s Group, which consists of a group of victims trafficked to the Middle East. It was a unique opportunity to hear first-hand narratives of each individual victim and also compare notes from various angles of their experiences. It was confirmed that all of them had gone or intended to go to seek greener pastures. The main employment opportunity was domestic services while they all ranged between the ages of 24 – 26 years. A total of seven victims ( 6 females and one male) participated. Among them was Beth, who had returned back into the country on 14th September 2019 after a near second trafficking ordeal at the Jeddah airport, Saudi Arabia. The report can be found here.