Sunday, May 25, 2008

Tanzania's missing girls...

For five months last year Kim Kitchen, a Canadian expert on sexual violence and community development, lived in a crowded shantytown on the outskirts of the Tanzanian capital of Dar es Salaam while she set up a women's safety program. She began to notice that nightfall was an anxious time for mothers.

"One of the startling realities for me was as the sun started to set I observed the women would start calling in their daughters," said Kitchen. "As the sun set more and more, and daughters hadn't come, the urgency in their calls grew. It was just a matter of fact that every girl has to be in their home after dark."

Across East Africa--once a corridor for merchants trading slaves from the continent's interior for fine cloth, frankincense and spices from the Middle East--conditions are in place for a boom market in the traffic of human beings. Poverty and instability in the region mean many are desperate enough to trade themselves or their children for a ticket out. Tanzania is no exception.
More...

See also: Underage girls and the modelling/porn industry...
And this: Genocide: India's missing daughters...

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