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Thupeyo Muleya, Beitbridge Bureau
The Zimbabwe-South Africa Cross-border Coordination Committee for Unaccompanied and Separated Migrant Children (CBCCUSMC) has raised concern over the rampant trafficking of minors between the two countries, most of whom are said to be from Bulawayo.

The CBCCUSMC is made up of officials from the two nations’ social services departments, immigration, police, non-governmental organisations and human rights lawyers among others.

Speaking during a quarterly meeting held in Beitbridge on Tuesday, the committee’s co-chairperson, Mr Craig Nkomo (Zimbabwe) said the illegal movement of children across borders was troubling.

He said cases of irregular migration of minors were rife during school holidays.  Mr Nkomo said a total of 150 children were intercepted at Beitbridge Border Post and around Limpopo province in the neighbouring country while being transported to either Zimbabwe or South Africa.

“It is sad that we continue to have parents or guardians who expose their children to illegal migration,” he said.

“Most of the intercepted children are from Bulawayo and Chiredzi and their destination in South Africa is mainly Johannesburg in Gauteng Province. In general the largest number was intercepted in the month of January while the movement was significantly lower in April.”

He said investigations by the social services department revealed that most of the children were visiting their parents in South Africa.  Mr Nkomo said Zimbabwean authorities had adopted zero tolerance to the smuggling of children and other illegal immigrants.

He said authorities were impounding vehicles of those facilitating irregular migration. “Besides having the vehicles impounded the culprits are being sent to court for prosecution. It has also become apparent that in some cases irregular migration among these children is a result of peer pressure,” he said.

Mr Nkomo said they had scaled up awareness campaigns in the high migrant sending areas with a view of reducing incidents of child smuggling.

“We need to redouble our efforts as stakeholders in addressing the root causes to this trend. It is pleasing that since we created this forum around 2015, cases of children being deported from South Africa together with adults have stopped,” said Mr Nkomo.

The committee’s South African co-chair, Mr Robert Mukwevho, said they had 79 unaccompanied minors, the majority of them Zimbabweans who were being kept at child and youth care centres dotted around Limpopo Province.

He said they were working on reuniting the children with their parents.

“We are working on getting court orders for us to keep the children for three months while we trace their parents. In case we don’t find them in that period we apply to keep them for two years while we exhaust all avenues to trace the relatives,” he said.

Mr Mukwevho said sometimes they enrol children of school going age in learning institutions, although they still had challenges in securing places in the absence of documentation.  He said they were still engaging lawyers for human rights and the department of education over the issue.