RIYADH, 26 February 2006 — Saudi Arabia has repatriated about 3,000 children. A large number of them were trafficked into the country from Yemen with parental approval.

The Jeddah-based Al-Birr Charitable Society gave shelter to these children before deportation during the last two years, said senior UNICEF officials, who are currently providing technical support to the Kingdom in addressing the problem of child trafficking.

“These homeless children were mainly from Yemen, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Niger and a few other countries,” said June Kunugi, UNICEF’s representative for Gulf countries, here yesterday.

Kunugi was speaking during the first Arab regional workshop organized here and aimed at fighting child trafficking. UNICEF and the Prince Naif Arab University for Security Sciences organized the workshop.

Senior officials from Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Yemen, Lebanon, Egypt and Jordan attended the workshop, including former Saudi Labor Minister Ali Al-Namlah and Hamza Al-Fier, a professor of Shariah at Um Al-Qura University.

A panel of 14 international experts from the Kingdom, Ireland, Czech Republic, the UAE, Kuwait, Sudan, Egypt and Syria participated in the event and discussed various dimensions of child trafficking.

“Many children come to the Kingdom with the consent of their parents and these parents, according to the international laws, are traffickers,” said UNICEF consultant Ushari Khalil. “Many children are trafficked for a wide range of purposes, including for use in farming, begging and domestic including forced labor and sexual exploitation.”

He said that Al-Birr Society provides protection to the trafficked children mainly detained at holy sites. At any given time, there are between 70 and 100 children taking shelter at the Al-Birr facility, he said.

“Saudi Arabia has shown a clear intent to address this problem, which has compounded recently,” said Khalil.

Referring to the efforts of the Kingdom to curb child trafficking, Semaeil Ibrahim, UNICEF’s program coordinator, said that UNICEF was working with Al-Birr to tackle the problem. UNICEF is also engaged in cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs, civil societies and academic institutions. The UNICEF and the Ministry of Social Affairs have opened a reception center in Harad on the Yemeni-Saudi border.

According to a report published recently, a large number of Yemeni and other children are caught in Saudi Arabia every month and they are almost exclusively boys. As juveniles, they are not prosecuted by the Saudi authorities, but simply deported back to their home countries. Families, who send their children to the Kingdom, worry only about the danger of deportation, says the report, also published on the UNICEF website. But, a recent government assessment of trafficking shows children face many other dangers, in particular violence, hunger and sexual abuse.

In Saudi Arabia, border guards are also being trained to recognize and look after trafficked children as part of a program. Many other initiatives seek to find out ways and means on how to treat children during their arrest and deportation as well as how to deal with the problem.

Moreover, there is also a need to tighten up legislation and target the areas most at risk that will help slow the trend and protect many children in Arab countries.

Globally, an estimated 1.2 million children are victims of trafficking every year, affecting both industrialized and developing countries.