Children are being abducted in South Sudan to be taken into slavery by non Southerners.
The alarm was sounded by GoSS Minister for Gender, Child and Social Welfare in the Tuesday Media Forum organized weekly by the Ministry of Information.Minister Agnes Kwaje Lasuba told the press that children were still being abducted in South Sudan.
Ms. Kwaje added that the children taken by southerners were integrated in their families while non-Southerners were enslaving the children to force them to work.
She added the enslavement of children was a big issue not yet addressed by the government.
Asked by the SCR News reporter to be more specific, Ms. Kwaje said the enslavement of children is taking place in Northern Bahr el Ghazal, Unity and Abyei.
The minister added that girls as young as 10 were abducted and forced into marriage with old men.
Ms. Kwaje said that children taken by the Ugandan rebels of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) in Western Equatoria State were suffering from untold violence.
She added that some children who escaped from the LRA are being counselled to overcome the traumas and huge violence they have been through.