CATHOLIC BISHOP ON CHILD TRAFFICKING

The National 26 April 2012

Catholic Bishop of Kundiawa Anthon Bal has added a voice and commented on a report on the existence of sex work by children below the age of 18. He says this is caused by poverty.

He stated that child trafficking involved parents and guardians who sold their children to clients.

He claimed parents did not care how they treated their children. He would need proof for all this.

He said that school children's needs are so high and important. Parents must not refuse to meet these demands.

Comment: The Bishop points out a community problem and acknowledges that this is caused by poverty.

He fails to express the financial difficulties faced by a family in the urban areas who have no land to grow vegetables.

Children going to school need lunch money and money for note pads and pens.

Three school children may need K3 a day each. That is K9 a day and K90 a fortnight. That is over half the basic wage.

Young girls and boys are most difficult for parents to keep watch over. Some may have mobil phones that they turn off daily.

What if they come home from school each day at 6.00pm and will not say where they have been?

What if there is no money at home but the young girl gives her mother K10? What does the mother do?

She will probably rush off to the market to buy vegetables. She can not afford to ask where the money comes from.

What if a man wants to marry a 12 year old girl and promises to look after the family?

Opportunity knocks but once. There may be no more starvation.

What is the parent to do? He says he will send her to high school and care for her. He gives the parents K500 with a promise to give more.

There are insidious terms creeping into the issue. Child trafficking is not an accurate term for what is going on. Men who come to a family may not be clients.

It is not a family business but a family struggling to survive. There has to be more proof that families are running prostitution businesses with their daughters. Some parents may turn a blind eye out of necessity.

Then there is another new term creeping in with people involved in violence being called survivors.

I was bashed by the mother of my daughters on many occasions. Does that make me a survivor of violence?

We must not fall into the trap of believing that violence is caused only by men. Many highlands women do not argue without a rock in their hand.

My younger daughter has been punched by raskol girls at school. Does that make her a survivor of violence? Usage of the word in both situations is exaggeration.

Real survivors are at the tip of the iceberg. They certainly exist in large numbers.

These may be words coined by the UN lesbians who plan to move into PNG now that the AusAID commitment has declined.

We are in the midst of a UN hate man hate family campaign. It is a little like the nazi invasion of Poland.