Recent years have witnessed a dramatically growing spiral in child sexual abuse and exploitation in almost all African nations south of the Sahara, to such a degree that at the July 2003 African Union Summit held in Maputo, Mozambique, 17 Southern African Campaign Against Child Abuse and Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation (SACO) member organisations, together with their international partners, tabled an urgent appeal to all African Heads of States and Governments urging them to address the plight of African children without delay.

SACO members' concerns are common to the whole of Africa. This sex industry is a new form of slavery and tied up to the world's unbalanced globalization. It is part of the US$7billion a year human trafficking trade, which, according to the US Department of State's 2004 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, already involves 143 (74.4%) of the world's 192 nations. Global intra-country trafficking in persons is estimated at between two to four million, and 600,000 to 800,000 people are estimated to be trafficked across borders each year.

Although to-date there is no concrete research to establish the exact level and extent of the problem of trafficking in children and young women for exploitation purposes in Africa, UNICEF has estimated that as many as 200,000 to 300,000 children are trafficked out of, and between West African countries every year. And although Africa continues to go on as if nothing is happening to its children and young women, the US Office to Monitor Human Trafficking has already indicated that 45 of its 54 nations (representing 83.3%) are involved in the trafficking of children and young people, especially girls and young women for commercial sexual exploitation and labour.

Research by The Movement for the Prevention and Protection Against Poverty, Destitution, Diseases and Exploitation (Mapode), a community-based, youth-at-risk focused Non Governmental Organization (NGO) which has implemented youth risky behaviour prevention and protection programs in Uganda and Zambia since 1997, indicates that Africa's receiving nations are mainly the Western Industrialized nations.

Mapode conducted two research projects, the first on trauma among prostituted women in 1998, and the other one on street girls in 2001. It has also just concluded its SACO supported study on 'Children and Young Women in Prostitution and Trafficking for Commercial Sexual Exploitation, Labour and Crime in Zambia'.

The findings of this research serve to confirm both SACO and UNICEF concerns and pose a serious challenge to child protection and the promotion of women's rights, not only in Zambia where the research was undertaken, but in Africa as a whole.

The research found that prostitution and trafficking of children and young women showed a dramatic increase. A total of 36.5% of respondents indicated that they had been trafficked, with 15% having been trafficked out, against 21.5% who said they had been trafficked in. Forty nine percent were aged between 11-18-years, 47% 19-26-years, and 3% from 27years and above.

Prostitution was found to be highly poverty driven. Sixty four percent gave their reasons for entering prostitution as poverty. Educational status was another factor: Nearly half (49.7%) had dropped out of school due to lack of funds. Interestingly, the period that 42.1% of Grades 8-9 girls dropped out of school corresponded with the decade 1990-2000, renowned for the implementation of the World Bank's Structural Adjustment Programs (SAP) in Africa that resulted in Zambia's mass closures of its mining industry and huge state-owned parastatal companies that left thousands of Zambia's urban families almost destitute.

Preference for child sex was often talked about. As an 18-year-old prostitute, who operates with her 13-year old sister, said: "The men prefer the baby; she is a goldmine." Preference for unprotected sex was exceedingly high at 78%. Given the high prevalence of HIV infection in Zambia - estimated at 19.8% - each sexual encounter carries an extremely high risk. Sex charges ranged from the equivalent of US$1 to US$50 in hotels, with a preference indicated for European tourists and business executives who are believed to pay more and to be safer.

On the other hand, heath issues such as Sexually Transmitted Infections and HIV/AIDS were not priority concerns. As expressed by one prostitute: "You are telling me about AIDS. I know about it. We were 37 in our group. I am the only one remaining now! But no money no life! AIDS might come tomorrow or next year. I don't know. But hunger and rent are now - they cannot wait."

Sadly, as the Mapode research clearly demonstrates, this human trade is also gender biased. The majority of its victims are females, particularly female children.

The reason for targeting children and young women are many and varied. The 2002 ILO Global Report points out that children's childhood is their vulnerability, and that although children are generally less productive than adults, their child state makes them less assertive, and easier to abuse. They can be made to work longer hours in services such as domestic, factory, agriculture, and sex work, with little food, poor accommodation, and little or no benefits.

Legal Protections at local, sub regional and regional levels are for now non existent. For instance, whereas Zambia has ratified the two African Human Rights Charters and most UN Conventions, it has not domesticated them in its laws, and has not ratified the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children. Although Article 18 of the African Charter on Human and People's Rights prohibits discrimination against women in the context of the family, it does not include explicit provisions guaranteeing the right of consent and equality in marriage, a situation that leaves room for exploitation and injustice to women and their children.

Urgent action is needed to end this 'second slavery' and the following conclusions and recommendations offer a starting point:
- Prostituting and trafficking of a person for exploitation degrades and erodes a person's humanity physically, morally, mentally, psychologically, and spiritually.
- Public awareness, interventions and legal protections are either limited or non-existent at local, sub regional and regional levels since protective regional and international laws have not been incorporated into domestic law. Only three SADC countries of Botswana, Namibia and South Africa have ratified the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of Child (CRC) to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children.
- Combating trafficking will be very difficult unless all SADC and AU nations form a united front. Africa must unite to declare this modern slavery a crime against humanity.

* Merab Kambamu Kiremire (Mrs,), a Development Worker with over 30 years working experience in community-related programs and projects is the Initiator and Director of MAPODE which operates in Zambia and Uganda. She was a FAWE Laureate 1997, and Africa Gender Institute (AGI) Rockefeller Associate 2004, University of Cape Town (UCT). She coordinated MAPODE research on Children and Young Women in Prostitution and Trafficking for Commercial Sexual Exploitation, Labour and Crime in Zambia in 2002, with financial assistance from Terre des Hommes of Germany.

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New evidence has emerged linking Jeffrey Archer to the alleged conspirators behind the attempted coup in Equatorial Guinea. A lawyer for the Equatorial Guinea government said in London Tuesday that telephone records showed four calls between the homes of one of the alleged financiers behind the plot, London-based Lebanese businessman Ely Calil, and Lord Archer in the run-up to the coup attempt in March. Another alleged plotter, businessman Greg Wales, also made five calls to Sir Mark Thatcher in the days after the failed coup.

Dr Milica Bisic from Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), who took on entrenched interests to stamp out tax evasion in Republika Srpska, BiH, and whistleblowers who brought to light the Goldenberg scandal in Kenya, were the winners of the TI Integrity Awards. David Munyakei, a clerk at the Central Bank of Kenya, provided MPs with documents revealing illegal transactions with Goldenberg International. Constable Naftali Lagat refused to obey Kenya's Director of Criminal Investigations' demand that he release to a director of Goldenberg International smuggled gold he had intercepted at Kenya's Wilson Airport.

Zimbabwe's request for funding from the Global Fund to Fight HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis (TB) and Malaria has again been rejected. Last week Zimbabwe appealed the Fund's earlier rejection of its HIV/AIDS and TB grant proposals and was also rejected. However, Mary Sandasi, the director of a local HIV/AIDS group, Women and AIDS Support Network, said she believed the Global Fund was "mixing issues" and had "a hidden agenda".

A new guide has been launched which is liberally interspersed with examples of searches, and search strategies, relating to Africa or African studies topics. A pilot edition of this guide is now freely accessible at http://www.hanszell.co.uk/google/. It is published as an adjunct to the new third edition of The African Studies Companion: A Guide to Information Sources (online at http://www.africanstudiescompanion.com/) although it can also be used on its own.

"...Progress For Children addresses the child survival Millennium Development Goal, graphically depicting the world's advances in the lead up to 2015. It states that despite global gains in child survival since 1990, significant discrepancies remain within and across countries and regions and 11 million children still die needlessly each year. By ensuring access to basic services and continued use of simple, cost-effective interventions, these deaths can be averted and the goal of a two-thirds reduction in under-five mortality from 1990 to 2015 achieved [...]"

Four of the world's foremost environmental and development campaigners are to address a press conference on Friday 15th October in London, at the opening day of the European Social Forum (ESF). All are addressing major platforms at the European Social Forum, being held from 15 to 17 October in London. They will talk about their work and explain why they consider social forums and the London ESF a crucial part of the fight against corporate globalisation and environmental destruction.

The "War on Terror" must not be used to justify reversing progress on the abolition of the death penalty, Amnesty International's Irene Khan said as more than 90 countries prepared to mark the World Day against the Death Penalty this Sunday. "Human rights are for the best of us and the worst of us. Human rights are for the guilty as much as the innocent. That is why the death penalty must be abolished world-wide," said Irene Khan. For a copy of Irene Khan's speech to the Second World Congress against the Death Penalty http://web.amnesty.org/library/index/engact500172004

A new research report from the Humanitarian Policy Group (HPG) examines how the international development aid system is becoming increasingly engaged in situations which, for many years, have been seen as largely the preserve of the humanitarian community. It reviews the changing relationship between the ideas, instruments and financing of the humanitarian system and of mainstream development cooperation in situations of protracted crisis. Two briefing papers synthesize the key findings and conclusions: http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/hpgbrief16.pdf AND http://www.odi.org.uk/hpg/hpgbrief17.pdf

Mycobacterium tuberculosis infection is a necessary, but not sufficient, cause of tuberculosis (TB), as only approximately 10% of those infected ever develop tuberculosis. This process of progressing to disease after infection is poorly understood. A well known risk factors for this progression is HIV/AIDS. In a letter that will appear in Emerging Infectious Diseases several scientists hypothesize on epidemiological grounds that, in addition to HIV, there likely exists another sexually transmitted virus that causes tuberculosis after tuberculous infection.

African Colours, online since July 2000, is a portal for Contemporary Art, as well as a dynamic force to link artists from different parts of the world so that they can share their ideas and culture and achieve a common goal. To make a contribution, you can send your news and editorials to [email protected]. To subscribe to their mailing list and receive African Colours Updates, please send an email to [email protected].

A conference was held Sep. 29 in Bergen City, southern Norway, which brought together 70 education specialists from Africa, Europe and Asia. Governments, civil society and donor agencies were represented at the meeting, entitled 'Quality in Education for All'. Various African governments received a stinging rebuke this week for failing to live up to promises to improve children’s education in their countries.

Statewatch is calling for the draft EU common list of "safe countries of origin" to be scrapped. An analysis by Statewatch shows that EU member states are divided over the proposed list of ten "safe countries of origin" (seven in Africa, three in Latin America).The list was proposed in March as part of the draft EU asylum procedures Directive, which was politically agreed by the member states in April 2004. A broad coalition of refugee and human rights organisations has already called for this Directive to be withdrawn.

Two African television programmes have been nominated for the prestigious International Emmy Awards Gala to be held November 22 2004, in New York. "Stokvel" by Penguin Films (South Africa) was nominated in the comedy category and the other African nomination is for the special Iemmy/UNICEF International Children's day of broadcasting (ICDB) award. In this special category, Kenyan Nation TV's Channel 42 has been nominated for its "International Children's Day of Broadcasting Special".

In March 2004, Equality Now launched its report, Words and Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing + 10 Review Process. Since then, countries have made some developments regarding the laws given in the report and more recommended actions have been made. Please find a copy of the full report in the Women and Gender section of this newsletter or go to www.equalitynow.org.

The fundamental right to equality has been affirmed and reaffirmed repeatedly by governments in international treaties, declarations, and conferences, as well as in domestic constitutions. Nevertheless, discrimination against women in its most blatant forms continues in countries around the world. In September 1995, 6,000 delegates from 189 countries at the United Nations Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing adopted a Declaration reaffirming their fundamental commitment to "the equal rights and inherent dignity of women and men." They also adopted the Beijing Platform for Action in which they pledged to "ensure equality and non-discrimination under the law and in practice," and more specifically in Paragraph 232(d) to "revoke any remaining laws that discriminate on the basis of sex and remove gender bias in the administration of justice." In June 2000, a Special Session of the General Assembly reviewed implementation of the Platform for Action, and governments pledged in the Outcome Document they adopted to review domestic legislation "with a view to striving to remove discriminatory provisions as soon as possible, preferably by 2005…" The 2005 deadline is fast approaching, yet laws that explicitly discriminate against women remain in force in many countries.

In 1999, Equality Now published Words and Deeds: Holding Governments Accountable in the Beijing +5 Review Process, a report highlighting a representative sampling of discriminatory laws in forty-five countries around the world and calling on their governments to rescind these laws in accordance with the commitment made in the Beijing Platform for Action. There have been a number of significant legal reforms in some countries. Equality Now welcomes the reforms that have been made by the Governments of The Bahamas, Costa Rica, France, Jordan, Mexico, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Switzerland, Turkey, Venezuela and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia - Republic of Serbia, to eliminate the discriminatory laws highlighted by Equality Now in its initial report. These reforms demonstrate a commitment to equality and respect for the undertakings made in Beijing and other international legal obligations. They set an example that should be followed by all governments. The Government of Nepal amended several property laws to remove discriminatory provisions, including a law that gave daughters the right to a share of family property only if they were 35 years old and unmarried. It failed, however, to repeal a provision that requires women to return any such property upon marriage.

A large majority of the discriminatory laws cited by Equality Now in its report five years ago are still in force. The updated report attached to this Women's Action Update includes these laws and other laws that explicitly perpetuate de jure discrimination with regard to personal status, economic status, marital status and violence against women. These are a few of the many existing laws that fundamentally contradict the words and spirit of the Platform for Action (as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Civil and Political, and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women). In anticipation of the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action and the target date of 2005 for elimination of discriminatory laws, Equality Now calls on all governments to rescind these laws within the next year, to demonstrate their commitment to implement the Beijing Platform for Action.

Explicitly discriminatory laws that mention women by name are only a small part of the discrimination women face daily in every country in the world. In many and varied ways, women's right to equality is pervasively and invisibly denied and precluded, their social inequality officially ratified. Some constitutions specifically exempt from equality guarantees certain laws that particularly and profoundly affect women's lives, such as family law and property inheritance, in deference to discriminatory religious or customary laws. Laws adopted to promote equality in employment rarely guarantee equal pay for work of comparable value, and domestic work is almost never covered by labor laws, with the result that women in the most sex-segregated jobs continue to be underpaid and unprotected.

Authorities in most countries are typically reluctant to respond vigorously to domestic violence with the result that women, the primary victims of intimate assault, have less personal security. Some countries make selling sex a crime while buying sex is not, thereby criminalizing those who are exploited, mainly women, while at the same time not holding those who exploit them, almost always men, accountable for this abuse. In countries where abortion is a crime, women are forced to carry pregnancy to term or are exclusively burdened with the danger of illegal abortions, which can be fatal. Whenever laws promote or perpetuate women's inequality, even when their language appears gender-neutral, they constitute discrimination in violation of international norms. To implement the Beijing Platform for Action, which calls for "non-discrimination under the law and in practice," governments must review all laws that have a discriminatory impact and remedy this discrimination.

Law is the most formal expression of government policy. A government that allows discriminatory laws to remain in force endorses and promotes inequality. Without equality under law, women have no recourse when they face discrimination that affects all aspects of their lives including security, bodily integrity, family life, community status, and political, economic and social prospects. The fact that there are any laws - in fact so many laws - that explicitly discriminate against women nearly 10 years after the adoption of the Beijing Platform for Action, 25 years after the adoption of CEDAW and 55 years after the adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights affirming that "all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights," is unacceptable.

Recommended Actions Please write to the heads of state of the countries mentioned in this report and call on them to ensure that the laws mentioned, and any other discriminatory laws in force, are repealed or amended before the agreed target date of 2005. Urge them to undertake and complete these reforms as a demonstration of their genuine commitment to the words and spirit of the 1995 Beijing Platform for Action and the Outcome Document adopted in 2000. To address the harmful and disproportionate impact on women of laws that are gender neutral in language, call on your own government to undertake a comprehensive review, in conjunction with women's groups in the country, of existing laws to identify and address any sex discriminatory impact these laws might have, through legal reform or other measures needed to ensure non-discriminatory implementation of the law. This appeal should be addressed to your Minister of Justice, as well as your President or Prime Minister. Share this report and your concerns with the media and the general public, to enlist their support in this campaign to hold governments accountable to the promises they made in the Beijing Platform for Action. Please keep us updated on your campaign efforts and let us know about discriminatory laws in your country and efforts underway to change them.

Please keep Equality Now updated on your efforts and send information or copies of replies you receive to: Equality Now, P.O. Box 20646, Columbus Circle Station, New York, NY 10023 USA or Equality Now Africa Regional Office, P.O. Box 2018 KNH, Nairobi, KENYA

Delegates at a racism conference urged blacks worldwide to work toward greater economic power, while the gathering faced criticism of a decision to exclude non-blacks from some deliberations. The six-day conference in Suriname is bringing together more than 100 delegates from Africa, Canada, the United States, Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean. The Global African Conference was created during a 2002 meeting in Barbados, billed as a follow-up to the 2001 United Nations anti-racism conference in South Africa.

If you would like to receive the UN senior vacancy job lists attachment for
Fall 2004, send your request directly to [email protected]. For requirements, eligibility and application deadlines, please visit the United Nations website at UN Human Resources e-Staffing System at: https://jobs.un.org/release1/vacancy/vacancy.asp.

Young Africans will soon have a better chance of getting education and training, thanks to a new Canadian program. The Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) is assisting the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) to launch this fall a two-year $1.4 million pilot project designed to benefit up to 250 young men and women in eight African countries.

Freedom in the World, the annual global survey of civil liberties and political rights, is now available on Freedom House's website. Covering 192 countries and 18 territories, the survey rates them according to criteria based largely on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including the right to freedom of expression. Countries and territories are given a rating of "Free," "Partly Free" or "Not Free."