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Zimbabwe: Child Labor Forced as the Church Continues to Challenge

CBN

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Children lured by family members travel from rural regions of Zimbabwe into cities with promise of adoption or education are finding themselves forced into horrible situations.

The 2015 Trafficking in Persons Report states institutions that normally protect children like families, religion, and culture, are destroying young children's minds and lives.

Some are forced to beg on the streets, work without pay, unwanted marriages, or other forms of this scam. Medical services and education are withheld from others.

Most decisions for children becoming forced laborors are for economic reasons, but other times it is tradition or religious beliefs of a child's parents. 

The Children's Act encourages the nation's respect for children on a foundation of human rights. Within the act, child marriage is criminalized and anyone who marries a child under 18 will be sentenced to time in prison. The enforcement of the act is missing. 

The parliamentary liason officer from the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC), Fr. Edward Ndete said in an interview, "The Bible is unequivocally against sin and abuse. It is also against illegality, of which child marriage in this country is. So the church is part of the team that has to fight against the breaking of the law, especially when the victims cannot stand for themselves."

"The educational department of the ZCBC recently developed a child protection policy to guard against human trafficking in Zimbabwe," Ndete said.

Each year men, women, and children are trafficked throughout Zimbabwe and its borders and the policy says the exploitation of children in the sex trade is undeniable.

Churches throughout Zimbabwe are uniting under a seven-point plan to protect, prevent, prosecute, participate, policy, partnership, and pray against trafficking. 

The Union for Development of Apostolic Church in Zimbabwe and Africa (UDACIZA)'s Director Rev. Edison Tsvakai is making progress in helping traditions evolve.

Rev. Tsvakai explains that women did not want to get their children vaccinated or give birth in a hospital because of religious reasons. Slowly, parents are recognizing the importance of having birth certificates for their children, because it is their own people explaining concepts to them.

"People are now seeing that there is no spiritual harm in ensuring that children get necessary services and some of the scruples are falling away," he explained.

"We are getting together and saying, 'Men and brothers, we cannot continue this way. We need to empower the children.'" Rev Tsvakai said. The main point of resistance he sees is from the older denominations sticking to tradition amidst the positive changes.

However tradition cannot change overnight. He said the good news is more children are getting the services they are entitled to and they are continuing to communicate with parents about the importance of these changes.

The goal of the churches is to protect the children, one day at a time. 

Dr Rene Loewenson a Zimbabwean epidemiologist in a paper called, "Child Labor in Zimbabwe and the Rights of the Child" addresses basic child rights and solutions to the of child labor.

Loewenson says, "Children's rights will continue to be denied as long as our economy generates extremes of wealth and poverty, wastes productive labor, and produces contrasts of a highly resourced social and cultural environment for the rich and social poverty for the poor."

"These economic conditions will continue to generate the imperatives that force child labor, whatever laws are passed or conventions ratified."

Continuing Loewenson says, "The current legal and social conditions make it too easy for child labor to be exploited."

"It is not by accident that so little is known about child labor, and that there has been so little exposure on the problem... If we are unable to change the unacceptable conditions of child labor it is time to break the silence."

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