Bénin

Histoires vécues

Don't tie the knot (yet): Preventing early marriage

by Michèle Akan Badarou

COTONOU, 27 JANUARY 2003 -- The work of Benin's Local Committees to Fight Against Child Trafficking, created with funding from UNICEF, has been so successful that they have now taken on other protection issues, using awareness-raising campaigns and sometimes, as in this story, force, to ensure a child's right to school and an education.

The Kpota village chief, M. Awadjihe Tohouenoussi, announces with great pride that about 30 children are registered for the coming school year which will start within a month. The existence of this school, soon to have two classrooms, is today a symbol of the determination of the local population to keep its own children at home and in school, rather than sending them away to large cities to work in other peoples' homes. It is also proof of the impact of a two-year information and awareness-raising campaign led by the Local Committee to Fight Against Child Trafficking.

The work of the Committee, as the building of the school illustrates, has been very successful. But it is the story of Yvonne which best illustrates the lengths to which the committee members are prepared to go in their fight to protect children against harmful traditional practices. The mayor of Zoungoudo commune, a member of the committee, brightens up as he relates Yvonne's story.

Yvonne, a frail young girl with frightened eyes, is aged between 11 and 12. She had never been to school and her father had already promised her to a young man from a neighbouring village.

One morning in June, against her mother's will, she was forcibly handed over to her future husband, an inhabitant of Sahe village. Yvonne had never set eyes on him before and didn't want to stay with him. She longed to continue her childhood and go to school or to a vocational centre where she could get some training paid for with her mother's savings.

When Yvonne refused to live with her husband-to-be, he hit her and kept her under constant surveillance. Her father had already pocketed a sum of approximately US$ 30 for her.

The mayor, alerted by his wife, who is also Yvonne's aunt, decided with his fellow committee members to liberate the young girl. Once she was freed, she got medical help at the village health centre. However, before Yvonne could fully recover from her experience, she was kidnapped again by her father and returned to her future husband. This time, with hands and feet bound, she was locked in a hut totally dependent on the latter's goodwill.

The Committee jumped into action again by lodging a complaint with the authorities which led to the police arresting the father and husband. The Local Committee was helped in its efforts by the regional radio station, Lalo, which broadcasts programmes on children's rights and reinforces the messages spread by the Committee members. Chosen by the community, members of the Committee are people who have pledged to defend the cause of the child. Membership is made up of between four and six people including the village chief, an older woman, a young person and another person considered important by the villagers.

Today, Yvonne is free but she is still anxious about the future. The departmental authority in charge of family affairs, together with the social promotion centre, plans to provide training for Yvonne as a way of guaranteeing her liberation.

The Local Committee has a large brief that encompasses: making people aware of the need to attend maternity hospitals in order to have safe births; raising awareness of the need for birth certificates; sending and keeping all children in school; preventing sexual and all other forms of child abuse; and helping reintegrate children who have been trafficked for labour. It is their responsibility to spread messages on children's rights throughout the community via everyday social contact and organized events and thus help change harmful attitudes, customs and behaviour practices in relation to children.

In 2000, some 23 Local Committees were created with funding from UNICEF Benin in 4 out of 10 targeted communes in the sub-prefecture. The Departmental Director of the Ministry of Family, Social Protection and Solidarity, Felicity Agajodo, hopes that the network will spread to the remaining zones before the end of the year. There is a direct link between the increase in school attendance rates and the decrease in children sent to work in other areas. In fact, for months now no child has been reported missing from any school. Since 1998, the number of children trafficked has been reduced from 1,059 in 1998 to 224 in 2000.

UNICEF was closely involved in setting up 300 Local Committees as a way of working with the communities themselves in sub-prefectures where most of the children used in trafficking come from. In addition, all Committee members are trained by UNICEF on children's issues and the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as being provided with equipment - flashlights, boots, raincoats, registers - to support their work.

Although the Local Committee Against Child Trafficking in Kpota commune has a number of successes under its belt, it knows that its work is far from over and so continues with its mission to inform and raise awareness to help build a protective environment for all children in Benin.