Founded in December 2014, this Child Club met four times with our Transit Coordinator in December 2014, January, February and April 2015 to learn about children’s rights, child trafficking, child labor and child abuse. When we met its members on the 24th of September 2015, most of them still had vivid memories of what they had learned and were convinced of the importance of education as a means not only to have a good future with good jobs and high salaries but also to better protect themselves.
“What is child trafficking?”, we asked them. One said it was the selling of children to another country to work but without any food or salary. Another asserted it was when someone gave some money to the parents to take their child to work in another country. This person would promise the parents their child would get the money from his work but would keep it for himself. Asked about child abuse they gave various answers such as “it’s the selling of children to sex businesses”, “it’s when the children sell something in the market and don’t go to school or when the children work at the factory” or “it’s when the parents do not let their children go to school” or even “when only 1 of the 4 children in a family go to school”.
We finally asked them about what they could do to help the children that were in these situations and got a genuine answer about “warning a girl that the candy she was given is a trap to harm her” or answers about reporting to stakeholders like commune council members, parents, schoolteachers or even just calling neighbors and warning other children. Empowered by the knowledge they got about their rights and the dangers they are facing, these children can then raise awareness about their rights and better protect themselves as well as other children in the village.
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