Guinea Bissau, children victims of human trafficking find their families thanks to a project also financed by the Italian Cooperation

ROME – “You saved me!”. With these words Aruna Candé, a little girl of just five, threw herself into the arms of Khady Florence Dabo, President of the Institute for Women and Childhood in Guinea Bissau, who was visiting the village of origin of the little girl. Aruna she lived on the street in Dakar begging since she was three years old. You were able to return to Guinea and rejoin your family, who live in a rural area, thanks to the Child Protection Project who have suffered violations of rights (PAPEV), promoted by theUnited Nations Office for Human Rights in West Africa (WARO).

Child trafficking in West Africa. The case of Aruna Candé is not an isolated one. In West African countries, many children are taken from their parents when they are very young and taken to neighboring countries to beg. Aruna, along with twenty-three of her peers, was trafficked at the age of three. You lived in Dakar suffering abuse and mistreatment. According to the latest estimates of theAfrican Committee of Experts on Children’s Rights and Welfare, between 2015 and 2018 more than six hundred thousand children in this part of the African continent were victims of cross-border trafficking. And according to estimates reported by WARO thanks to stories gathered in the field, this number has increased in recent years for a variety of reasons ranging from the precarious security conditions in some countries to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has exacerbated already serious economic and social conditions in which many families live.

Childcare centers. Currently between Mali, Guinea, Niger and Gambia there are one hundred and thirty-seven residential centers for children, with an average of thirty places each. Few, compared to the needs. For this reason, PAPEV was created, the Childhood Aid Project, born thanks to funding from theItalian Agency for Cooperation and Development (AICS) and created in collaboration with the Center for Gender Development of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). The project is currently being developed in Senegal, Mali, Niger, Guinea, Guinea Bissau and Gambia, with the intention of also providing legal advice to initiate reforms in favor of the protection of minors.

The expert’s voice. “The children we care for have suffered so much mistreatment and abuse that they show behavioral disorders and post-traumatic stress symptoms,” said Serigne Mor Mbaye, clinical psychologist, professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar and director of the Family Child Guidance Center, as stated on the website of the UN Human Rights Agency “Our goal is to support them from a psycho-social point of view. We feed them, heal their wounds, but that’s the simplest thing. The hardest part is to rehabilitate them so that they can continue their development harmoniously and integrate into society.”

The work of local NGOs. Amic is a non-governmental organization based in Guinea Bissau, which promotes and defends children’s rights. This center welcomes children taken off the street in border countries and prepares them to return to their families of origin. “The PAPEV project has helped us improve care for the most vulnerable children,” said Laudolino Carlos Medina, executive secretary of AMIC and coordinator of the West African Child Protection Network in Guinea Bissau. “There was nothing like this in Guinea Bissau, we often had to take the children to the hotel but it was very expensive. Thanks to the partners, the minors now receive support and can attend training courses and workshops. For example: the sewing workshop, the artistic one, the cooking one and also lessons to develop entrepreneurial skills. At the end of these courses, the children receive a reintegration kit and with the proceeds of these small activities they are able to go home and help their families”. The second phase of the project will cover the period 2023 and 2025 and aims to strengthen child trafficking prevention mechanisms both at community and state level.