Civil Society organizations, have revived their fight against human trafficking through a sensitization campaign across the country.
This was revealed by Alex Ssembatya, the Executive Director Make a Child Smile while commenting on the rise in the cases of kidnap of children and child sacrifice.
Ssembatya noted that there is a notable increase in child sacrifice following the reopening of schools as well as the full reopening of the economy.
“Since the lock down ended, in only one month, as an organization, we have registered 5 cases where children have been killed in a way of Child sacrifice. Other sister organizations have also registered a number of cases within this short period,” Ssembatya said.
He revealed that the children are now being targeted when they are going to or leaving school hence the rise in child sacrifice yet during the lockdown, the vice was low.
“I believe it has gone high and its time for all players and stakeholders to rise up and act against this vice. We should all come out as a community, legislators and every one to use our positions to fight against child sacrifice trend that is on the rise,” Ssembatya noted.
Ssembatya revealed that as such, the organization is to launch a sensitization campaign against Human Trafficking in general and child sacrifice/ child murder which starts as child kidnap.
“We are launching this campaign from Busia on March 15, 2022 and it will cover Karamoja, Jinja, Kamuli, Mbale and all other districts within the region. This is where most of the kidnapped children are picked from,” he said.
Ssembatya explained that majority of the trafficked girls are from the Eastern region who end up being trafficked to Nairobi and later Somalia.
“We realized that these need a lot of sensitization so that they know the dangers of being trafficked from one country to another. We want to train people on how they can fight for themselves so that they can easily identify a trafficker who has come among them in form of promising them jobs,” Ssembatya explained.
He added that, “At the end of the sensitization campaign, we want the participants to have understood the trends of human trafficking and how they can involve themselves in ending the vice. The campaign will run throughout the year and we shall be traversing the entire country moving from one district to another.”
The campaign shall be conducted in schools both primary and secondary, tertiary institutions, through community meetings to sensitize parents and other guardians equipping them with preventive measures.
He appealed to government to come out and offer support to Civil Society Organizations that are fighting against these crimes noting that NGOs alone can’t do much in ending the vice in Uganda.
He appreciated partner organizations like Project Rescue Children (PRC), End Modern Slavery (EMS) among others for rallying behind the sensitization campaign.
