July 9, 2010

Thousands of children in South Africa have been protected from human traffickers during the Football World Cup thanks to holiday clubs set up by the Anglican Church of Southern Africa.

The Holiday Club programme, developed by HOPE Africa* in co-operation with Scripture Union and The Ultimate Goal (TUG), has seen churches and schools using their facilities to provide children with a safe space to go and activities to keep them occupied.

The clubs have been very popular with children during their long school holiday, extended to cover the duration of the World Cup. With the help of hundreds of young volunteers, more than 5,000 children enjoyed play and life skills educational programmes, as well as meals provided by NGO school feeding programmes. Some clubs were able to set up screens to show football matches so that children were not tempted to try and travel to stadiums in the cities.

"As the World Cup went on we were hearing more and more about the reality of human trafficking in our country," said Archbishop Thabo Makgoba, the Primate of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. "Against a backdrop of thousands of extra tourists visiting South Africa, the media has been filled with stories from people with personal experiences of this horrible crime against humanity. There have been reports of missing children and the country has been on high alert. This is why this initiative has been so important."

As the Holiday Club programme draws to a close, the Anglican Church of Southern Africa will continue to work against trafficking. HOPE Africa, together with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Southern Africa and other church bodies, has undertaken a Stop Human Trafficking project to mobilise the faith sector in joining local and global efforts to combat trafficking and raise awareness through the media. The project will also train 300 key community activists in South Africa and Namibia and provide safe spaces for victims of human trafficking.

Trafficking is a problem globally with an estimated 1.2 million children trafficked each year for labour, sexual and other forms of exploitation. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, human trafficking is the fastest growing means by which people are enslaved, and the fastest growing international crime. South Africa's current laws make it particularly difficult to prosecute those involved. A Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons bill was submitted to the nation's parliament in March this year but has not yet passed into law.

The Stop Human Trafficking project is one of the initiatives featured in the latest edition of the International Anglican Family Network's thrice-yearly newsletter. Under the heading The Family and Trafficking the newsletter highlights efforts in many other parts of the Anglican Communion to raise awareness, safeguard those who are vulnerable to trafficking, and support the survivors of this modern form of slavery.

HOPE Africa is the social development programme of the Anglican Church of Southern Africa. It aims to promote and implement a social development programme for the Anglican Church in Southern Africa for the improvement of the spiritual, physical and emotional well-being of the poor and oppressed people of Africa on a non-denominational basis. http://www.hopeafrica.org.za/.

Anglican Communion News Service, London