Help combat child labor & human trafficking

There are still many children in our community who are victims of child labor; and many of them are involved in hazardous labor. Almost half of child labor in our community is from Angola. One in five children in the Ohangwena region (19.6%) is a child laborer, whilst prevalence in other regions such as Kavango West and East Zambezi Omushati and Oshana is Unkwown. This report highlights a community-based child rights education intervention implemented through the project, to address the problem.

The project contributed to a two percent increase in school enrolment and 1 per cent increase in entrepreneurship (which has been associated with a decrease in child labor trafficking and other victims, an equivalence of 35 learners 3 young women victims, seven months after implementation. The project has also contributed to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals five and 16 (promoting gender equality, facilitating human rights advancement and strengthening accountable institutions. It also provides project implementation strategies to support the efforts of anti-trafficking institutions to ASPOVC/Implementing Agency. In addition, it fosters awareness on the traumatic impact of child labor trafficking and a call to action for social workers to develop clinical interventions to support victims. It also addresses various limitations, implications, and future directions to the organization.

 Child labor trafficking remains one of the major forms of abuse against children in Namibia. There is currently unspecified number of children in Namibia between the ages of 5–17. Though child labor trafficking is prevalent in various ways in Namibia, the Agriculture community poses the greatest risk. This is partly due to a large number of children involved in hazardous agriculture and the risk of missing their relatives for far searching of employment.

Intervention Model

ASPOVC’s multi-preventive and community-wide intervention approach draws its implementation framework. The project looks at the child’s development within the context of the systems of relationships that form their environment. The project posits that the interaction between the child, their immediate family, school, and community environment steers their development Therefore, the ASPOVC project believes that applying an intervention for the child in addressing child labor and trafficking is insufficient until all systems and external factors that influence the child are included in the intervention.

Organization and the project focuses on influencing the child’s microsystems (immediate family), mesosystems (school and broader community environment), and macro systems (cultural and social values) by shifting social and cultural norms that create an enabling environment that facilitate the prevention child labor trafficking.

Project’s community-based approach is consistent with other projects that use ecological systems as a conceptual model to explain the importance of community partnership in advancing cultural cohesion that eventually promotes healthy youth outcomes such as school attendance and for self determination.