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Lilongwe Labour Office decries child prostitution levels

Lilongwe district labour officer Chiletso Mbewe has said levels of child prostitution in Lilongwe are worrying, adding that her office will step up regular inspections and sensitisation activities on child labour in the district.

Mbewe said most child prostitutes in the district are under the age of 14 and are trafficked from the Southern Region of the country.

Mbewe: We are stepping up sensitisation and inspection
Mbewe: We are stepping up sensitisation and inspection

She said:“Chigwirizano area in Likuni is topping in cases of child labour and prostitution so much that, last year alone, we discovered over 15 girls who were brought in from Thyolo and Mulanje and were working in the bars there.”

Mbewe said the district’s labour office also withdrew five girls under the age of 13 from bars at Nsungwi, in Area 25 Township, whose cases are still in court.

She revealed that a survey conducted in 10 villages under a project called Achieving Reduction of Child Labour in Support of Education, being implemented in Traditional Authority Chimutu, has exposed that out of 115 children, 95 were working as child labourers, with more than 60 of them being girls.

Mbewe said that her office has embarked on child labour sensitisation and inspection activities in communities around Lilongwe District, although funding constraints are suffocating the efforts.

She added: “We are supposed to do routine inspections every month but because of financial constraints, we inspect at quarterly intervals and this affects our coverage of the district so much that we visit one Traditional Authority (T/A) once a year, which is not effective.”

In a related development, the district’s social welfare office is sensitising the masses on the Child Care, Protection and Justice Act, to curb cases of early marriages within the district.

District social welfare officer Jean Nthengwe, said that the Act entrusts the responsibility of caring for children to parents, thereby discouraging them from abandoning their children to fend for themselves.

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One Comment

  1. Then you blame the northern region and introduce quota system in public universities. Guys in central and southern regions we need to sort out our houses. This is scandalous.

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