Protect underage boys from city profiteers
On duty. A boy vends boiled eggs on one of the streets of Kampala early this week. Many children are lured from their homes with promises of well-paying jobs in Kampala, only to end up as egg vendors. Photo by Gabriel Buule
What you need to know:
The issue: Hiring boys
Our view: From the Police Child and Family Protection Unit to the Coordination Office for Prevention of Trafficking in Persons at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, action must be taken against the suspects involved in this ‘trade’. Let this not be another story that gets swept under the carpet.
Saturday Monitor of January 12 carried a story about children being taken from their homes and brought to Kampala to sell boiled eggs. The process these children describe in telling how they got to Kampala has all the hallmark of child trafficking.
One boy tells of how he was picked from his parents’ home in Kalungu District with the promise of a job in Kampala. His journey to Kampala involved more boys being picked up along the way. At one point there was a telephone conversation which suggests that whoever brings these boys to Kampala received payment.
In short, there is a racket trafficking young boys into the city and putting them to work. These boys get as little as Shs500 a day while others say they earn Shs100 per egg sold. How much they earn and whether it is fair is not the issue here.
The problem is that these boys are children whose rights are being abused and there is urgent need to track down and apprehended their abusers. In this case, invoking the Prevention of Trafficking in Persons Act, there are two offenders. The first group are the people who recruit and transport the boys to Kampala. The second lot are the people who hire these underage boys to work for them.
It is unfortunate that both groups are making a killing at the expense of the boys’ future. In the first place, such boys should be in school.
Worse still, apart from these boys being exploited, what is worrying is the fact that those who are meant to protect them seem to be aware of what is happening, but are simply looking the other way.
In the story, one of the boys says Kampala Capital City Authority officials always detain them, only to let them go when the people who hire them make calls. This implies that those who hire the boys have networks.
Now that these boys have told their story, it is critical that everyone involved in protecting the rights of children and curbing child trafficking should pick interest and get to the bottom of this problem with a view to bringing an end to it.
From the Police’s Child and Family Protection Unit to the Coordination Office for Prevention of Trafficking in Persons at the Ministry of Internal Affairs, action must be taken against the suspects involved in this ‘trade’. Let this not be another story that gets swept under the carpet.
