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Stand up against Child trafficking in Uganda
A recent news investigation by media outlet NBS has highlighted the horrific and shocking world of child trafficking in Karamoja in eastern Uganda. In the nation’s capital of Kampala the percentage of people classed as poor and vulnerable is less than 11% – in Karamoja the number rises to more than 90%. One distressing by-product of this is that young girls in the region are being sold by their families for as little as 50,000 UGX (approximately €12/$14), trafficked for either labour or sex on the streets of Kampala.
In its investigation, NBS travelled to Soroti in Karamoja and located a weekly market where the products for sale were not animals or food, but young girls. The investigation showed parents, desperately hungry and impoverished, bargaining with the undercover reporters on a price, after which the purchased children are led away. In normal circumstances, these girls are brought to Kampala where they earn a pittance to beg on the capital’s streets for their profit of their new owners.
Those who outgrow this trade end up in downtown Kampala, in a slum area known as ‘Kikaramoja’ given the thousands of Karimojong who live there. Here, the Karimojong teenagers who have outgrown the streets have been forced into prostitution.
For Feed A Million Mouths International, these are the children we work with and the situations where they are trafficked for labour or sex are those we strive to prevent. Help us to keep these children off the streets and safe from trafficking by sponsoring food for them. Help us today by ‘Buying Breakfast’ – https://paintandparty.org/fammi-e-shop/.
One Person Cannot Change the World, But You Can Change the World for One Person.
About the author:
Eoin Scanlon.
Mark Mo
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