IRIN Web Special on Separated Somali Children

International criminal networks

There is a paucity of hard information on child smuggling and trafficking. An official of Interpol told IRIN that that while there were major investigations carried out on prostitution rings, pornography and international criminal cartels, relatively little was known about the international child trafficking networks. Authorities in European countries admit that in many cases they never get to see a child as it transits illegally through from one destination to another. Sometimes the children end up being left for long periods of time in "middle countries" before arriving at the intended destination. In a minority of cases, international criminal gangs snatch or recruit the children. For example, a group of Tanzanian girls in Sweden described to psychiatrists how an African woman came to their parents and offered girls "educational opportunities" abroad. The girls were taken to Sweden by the woman, kept in her house and shown sex videos - for "technique" - and then put on the streets as prostitutes.

[Somali father, on sending his first child away]

In 2001, 87 unaccompanied minors in Sweden went 'missing' - meaning they arrived, were registered or accommodated by the authorities, but then disappeared to an unknown destination. There is speculation that international organized crime accounts for a small number of these 'missing' children.

All professionals working with unaccompanied children agree that the children have become more vulnerable as communication technology becomes more sophisticated. According to staff in the Carlslund refugee centre in Stockholm, almost every child gets a mobile phone three or four days after arrival - "we don't know from where, or how". There is a debate in Sweden on how far the refugee child's liberties should be restricted in the interest of safety.

The main refugee centre is an open unit, and the children travel freely to town. They also have access to the Internet in the centre's library. The majority of 'missing' children are believed to have been moved on to another country by relatives, or gone "underground" if the asylum process is "not going their way". But one social worker told IRIN that "even if we lost one child to the international gangs, and didn't know about it, that is a huge scandal". She also pointed out that according to the principles of the UN Children's Convention⁷, no separated minor should be put in the position where they lose faith in the official process.

At the open refugee unit in Sweden, the police are concerned about the ease with which some people can come and contact the children without having to give any details about themselves. The children in Carlslund know one such person as the "mobile phone man", a police source told IRIN. While there is no hard evidence that unaccompanied children in Carlslund are being used by organized crime for child pornography and prostitution, the police source said, "I'm sure it has happened and might happen again, we just don't have the evidence."

An international police source agreed that there was little information on missing unaccompanied children, and said that the special vulnerability of these children was a relatively recent problem. The source pointed out that in Sweden, there is no available legislation⁸ on trafficking or smuggling, and the police must use the penal code until new legislation is adopted.

[United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child]

More resources were also needed to investigate child trafficking, including tracking down missing children, the source said. Canada, for example, compiles a missing children's list; and the United States has recently injected more funding into investigating Internet paedophile rings. In Europe, human rights and humanitarian organizations have called for greater efforts to be made to protect unaccompanied children, both in terms of appropriate legislation and resources available for investigating the trafficking networks.

The unique situation in Somali territories means that child smuggling is a growing industry, in an environment that facilitates smugglers and international criminal networks. Continuing international isolation and a general absence of development or emergency assistance encourage this.

In Mogadishu, the centre for child smuggling in Somalia, there are no functioning security organs or institutions with the capacity to challenge the trade, let alone work to halt it. Where a functioning authority exists, moreover, there is no inclination to stop a trade that has to all intents and purposes become an accepted means of survival - smuggling a child abroad accrues no social shame in a society where the future is so bleak and circumstances so extreme. Even in a relatively successful post-conflict society like Somaliland, children continue to be sent overseas because of the on going socio-economic emergency - specifically, the lack of education and health facilities.

But as a strategy of survival the cost is high. All the evidence suggests that the effect on the generation of children being shipped out of the country will be a traumatic legacy for Somali society.

[Comments on a missing Somali girl, February 2002]

[Ends]

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