Civil war and mass displacement sparks violation and trafficking of children in South Sudan

A LITTLE-ACKNOWLEDGED tragedy in South Sudan’s five-year civil war is that child kidnappings between clans had increased as people become more desperate amid widespread hunger and a devastated economy, human rights groups said.

“Child abductions and trafficking in South Sudan is a real issue that requires an urgent response by the government,” said Edmund Yakani, the executive director of the nonprofit Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation.

Keeping track of the kidnappings is extremely difficult owing to the continuing conflict and mass displacement in South Sudan.

However, despite this, the organi- sation has confirmed abductions in several parts of the country, including 11 children taken last year in Abyei in the north, five taken between 2012 and 2014 in the Wau area in the west, and seven in 2016 and last year in the Yei area in the south, near the Ugandan border.

The UN also reported that its child protection team confirmed abductions in the Unity, Central Equatoria, Jonglei, Upper Nile and Western Equatoria regions last year.

While inter-clan fighting, cattle raiding and abductions continue, in Jonglei state many from the Murle tribe are making profits from selling children.

A number of Murle tribesmen have admitted to trafficking chil- dren, trading them for cattle or to use them personally with reports of a child’s value equalling 20 cows.

Girls are often groomed for marriage and some children are kept by childless families.

Since 2016, 37 children have been abducted in Akobo, and surrounding areas, more than in the first three years of the war combined. Despite South Sudan signing the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 2015 “to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children”, the warring factions have been repeatedly accused of committing grave violations against children, including the forced recruitment of child soldiers.–