Roxilla

Two children are sold every single minute in this world, and it happens right underneath our noses, with many of us blissfully unaware.

While the atmosphere and excitement across South Africa grows, and the tourist droves come flocking in to our cities, another darker side of FIFA 2010 is lurking. Regular crime is one thing we can be prepared for, but organised crime and kidnappings are an even bigger risk to children in this country during the FIFA fever.

Human trafficking, and in particular, child trafficking is one of the most lucrative and hugest industries across the world, and with an estimated 800,000 persons trafficked across borders each year, and some 27 million in slavery, this $35 billion or so organised crime industry is also one of the biggest causes of missing children world-wide. The United Nations cites human trafficking as the second most lucrative crime around the world next to the drug trade and that 30% of trafficking victims are below the age of 18.

What does this mean for our children though, and why is FIFA time such a potentially dangerous time?

IOM’s ‘Eye on Human Trafficking’ report 2007 stated that between 28,000 to 30,000 children are currently being prostituted in South Africa. In the past three years this number has grown massively, and with a long five week break during the FIFA games, coupled with huge amounts of international visitors, the risk increases. Victims are often recruited from rural areas or informal settlements and transported to the urban centres of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Pretoria, Bloemfontein and Durban. (IOM Report on Internal Trafficking in South Africa, 2008). Boys under 18 are increasingly lured into sexual exploitation and used for pornography. (IOM, RITSA, 2008) Often, these boys are lured to their fate through ads offering opportunities for young soccer players.

My mom heard a story the other day from one of the parents at the nursery school that she runs, about a father who was at Canal Walk Pick ‘n Pay with his daughter. While paying at the tills, he turned his back for a few seconds, and when he looked back she had vanished. Quick reflexes caused him to shout, and soon staff and customers were helping him search. Eventually they were led outside to the main entrance area, where he happened to glance up to the roof, seeing his daughter’s feet disappear as she was lifted up to an accomplice waiting on the roof. When security and the father gave chase, the kidnappers dropped the child and took off.

Newsflash: this is happening right here, right now.

This is not just something that happens to kids from the townships, and until I started doing some reading on human trafficking, I didn’t have a clue just how big this issue was and how much it affects almost every child in the world. All those missing children, how many of them are living new lives as sex workers or worse? How many of the poor ones actually stand a chance against their own families selling them off?

If these thoughts don’t make you sit up, take a look at this Love146 interactive web page on human trafficking. Then find out how easy it is to get trapped into the lure of trafficking.

And if you have children, or nephews, nieces, young relatives or friends with children, teach them how to traffick proof them and keep them safe:

1. Never leave young children alone
2. Teach children to scream or shout if they are grabbed
3. Give children a safety whistle and teach them how to use it
4. Explain (in child-friendly terms) how trafficking works
5. Explain that no one has a right to take them away or hurt them
6. Be extra careful in busy, crowded places and hold hands where possible
7. Teach children a few basic self-defense moves if they are old enough
8. Speak to your domestic about the risks of trafficking and child safety
9. Make sure that your child understands the basics of ‘stranger danger’
10. Never assume that your children are immune to trafficking or kidnapping

Like many kids growing up in the 80′s, I was raised on the Get-along Gang and stranger danger. While we were allowed to play in the streets and run around the markets on our own and even catch trains alone by the age of 11 or so, we knew to avoid strangers in cars and dodgy phone callers. We were automatically wary of people, even back in the blissful 80′s and 90′s.

These days things are a lot different. Like everything else in this money-driven world, human lives are just another commodity, and with so much money coming in from this trade, our only way to combat it is to be aware and teach children how to stay safe.

Not a nice thought at all, but this is the reality we face. Ignorance is a luxury that we just cannot afford to indulge.