Child abduction, which is already a serious problem in Cote d’Ivoire, may worsen in the run up to presidential elections later this year as political hopefuls using traditional myths of human sacrifice to improve their electoral chances will fuel an already significant market for stolen children, according to the Ivorian police.

Child abduction is something that needs urgent attention especially in the run-up to the election because a lot of things are going to happen like human sacrifices and other rituals where the organs of children will be particularly in demand,” said Sergeant Antoine Goua Bi, a spokesperson for the child protection unit of the Ivorian police, who says child sacrifice always increases around election times.

“The number of children disappearing in Cote d’Ivoire has already reached extremely worrying proportions,” said Jean-Michel Boka, coordinator of the Ivorian non-governmental child protection organisation Roxal. “Every day we register three new cases – that adds up to between 60 and 90 cases per month.”

Organ traffickers, who slice out hearts, kidneys, lungs and other body parts for sale to medical facilities and soothsayers are the main culprits, Bi said. The children are also taken to work in the sex trade, for use by illegal adoption rings, and for work on plantations, he said.

Parents’ chances of getting their children back once they have disappeared is slim. Boka at the NGO Roxal estimated a recovery rate of just one in 20.

Kouassi Bâ, coordinator of the international NGO Save the Children in Korhogo, northern Cote d’Ivoire, said they are working alongside the UN Children’s Agency (UNICEF) and International Labour Organization, to raise awareness against child trafficking, but that there is no specific project against child abductions.

However on 30 May the representatives of nine West African countries governments met in Grand-Bassam in southern Cote d’Ivoire to sign a joint accord to harmonise their laws against child trafficking.

The Ivorian ministry of family, women and children said in a statement that it is taking the situation “very seriously” and that further measures against child abductions will be announced shortly.

Shortly before noon 7-year-old Kolotioloma Soro, her 9-year-old sister Anne-Marie and a crowd of other children tie up their cattle to bushes and sit under a giant tree for a brief rest before their school lessons.

After a meal of millet cakes and milk, the children retrieve slates and chalk they keep tucked away in nearby underbrush then situate themselves in straight rows on the ground under the tree. “The teacher will be here shortly,” Kolotioloma says. “We’ll review a bit before he arrives.”

The children – in Fapaha village in Côte d’Ivoire’s north-central Korhogo region – are part of a programme, sponsored by the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and run by the local NGO ‘Animation Rurale de Korhogo’ (ARK), to provide schooling to children who spend their days tending to family crops or livestock.

UNICEF is working to expand the programme to other regions of the country, the organisation’s Côte d’Ivoire Representative Youssouf Oomar told IRIN on 4 December. “It’s proven, based on our experience in Korhogo, that there is a way to get these children into a schooling system.” He said UNICEF is appealing for more funds to support the initiative.

The head of ARK said children must be given a chance at an education. “These children have everything it takes to learn to read and write just as their friends in regular school do,” ARK’s Benoit Soro told IRIN.

ARK’s nearly 80 volunteer instructors lead classes under trees or in village huts from noon to 2pm, when the children have a break from their field work. UNICEF provides supplies and teacher training.

Some parents ambivalent

In Cote d’Ivoire – where more than five years of conflict has severely disrupted basic education and other public institutions – the literacy rate is slightly over 50 percent, according to UNICEF. In the north the literacy rate is about half that, according to an Education Ministry statistics office.

And all across the region, poverty in some areas is such that parents cannot afford to send a child to school – the expense of supplies and the loss of a worker.

“I have no one [but my children] to help me with work in the fields,” Dramane Tuo, father of four children who tend to crops and livestock, told IRIN. “When it’s time for planting everyone is busy. One can’t count on anybody but one’s own children.”

At the same time, Tuo said he knows his children need an education. “We know children need to go to school.” His children are participating in the special classes.

Other parents in Korhogo are not convinced. Katiénézongui Soro has not decided whether to allow his children to attend, saying he would lose workers and his children would get distracted. “Not only is my workforce reduced, but when the children come back from class it’s tough for them to get back into the rhythm of farm work.”

Agricultural calendar

The organisation ARK works to adapt to the agricultural calendar to optimise schooling. ARK says it is clear that when farm work is most intense, children are less likely to show up consistently for classes.

In January – when the children will resume classes – field work is minimal. “We are going to step up the schoolwork during that time,” ARK’s Soro said. He added that once field work increases, parents “will not hesitate to come and fetch their children.”

Thirteen-year-old Karim Yéo’s parents might come looking for him some days, but he is enjoying his daily two hours of schoolwork. “I would like to have gone to [regular] school,” said Yéo, his torn clothes serving as both work garb and school uniform. “But my parents didn’t register me. I help them all the time with work in the fields before coming here for these classes under the tree.”

Back under the tree, the children sit in rows, silent, as their teacher arrives on a motorbike to begin the day’s lesson. They stand and greet him formally as any group of students seated at desks in a normal classroom would. “OK,” the teacher says to intensely attentive faces. “We’re going to review a bit then start on some maths.”

After class the children put pens, pencils, slates and books in shoulder sacks and go retrieve their cattle.

As politicians bicker in Côte d’Ivoire, children are dying from a breakdown of health care and other basic services or falling victim to violent crimes that go unpunished.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has called on authorities to step up efforts to protect children whose welfare, he said, was threatened as long as the conflict continued.

A UN report in that connection was published on 30 August just prior to a 4-7 September mission to Cote d'Ivoire by a UN special envoy on children in armed conflict.

As Côte d’Ivoire inches towards stability five years after an armed rebellion, the UN is urging political actors to give due attention to the needs of children.

“Many children lose their lives as a result of the acute deterioration of health services in most parts of the country… Ultimately the timely resolution of the conflict is critical to securing the well-being of children [in Côte d’Ivoire],” Ban said in the report.

The report said while sexual violence against children - particularly girls - is lower than during all-out fighting in 2002 and 2004, it still occurs “with alarming frequency”. From October 2006 to September 2007 there was an upsurge in rapes against children, according to the report.

“I remain deeply concerned about the prevailing culture of impunity for violations against children,” Ban said, adding, “Greater commitment and efforts are still required to redress the culture of impunity for such crimes.”

The report said while conflict-related deaths of children are declining, children continue to die “as a direct consequence of the environment of high insecurity and the breakdown of law and order and of institutions”.

Government promises to do more

The UN special representative for children in armed conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, told reporters at the close of her mission on 7 September in the commercial capital, Abidjan, that the Ivorian government has committed to improving children’s conditions.

She said the government had committed to creating an inter-ministerial commission to ensure the protection of children, and that negotiations were under way with the government over judicial reforms to that end.

UN officials say there has been some progress in Côte d’Ivoire, notably efforts to rescue child soldiers and stop recruitment of children.

Coomaraswamy said no case of child recruiting had been registered in the past year in Côte d’Ivoire. “We now need to ensure reintegration and proper follow-up on children in their communities.”

While Côte d’Ivoire’s conflict has not created masses of child combatants as in other wars in the region, at least hundreds of children have been recruited by armed groups - rebels and pro-government militia - UN officials say.

The UN does not have an official number of how many children are working for armed groups, UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) protection officer Sie Kambou told IRIN. UNICEF officials plan to meet former rebel forces in Bouake in early October to discuss how to determine the number and identify those needing help, he said.

To date UNICEF has assisted some 1,300 children who had worked for armed groups, Kambou said.

Envoy Coomaraswamy will present a report on her mission to the UN Security Council’s working group on children and armed conflict at its 18 September session, which will assess the situation in Côte d’Ivoire.

Photos of skeletal babies posted in a health center in northwest Cote d’Ivoire portray not just fallout from the country’s conflict but a longstanding problem thrown into the spotlight by the arrival of aid groups.

“Severe and moderate malnutrition have long existed in this region,” said Abdoulaye Ouattara, a doctor who runs a nutritional center in Madinani, a town 80 km east of the regional capital Odienne. “Because of the war, humanitarian groups came to this region and this allowed us to address some health problems that existed well before the crisis.”

In the main hallway of the Madinani nutritional center - run with support from UNICEF and the UN World Food Programme backed by international donors - are scores of photos of severely malnourished infants who have come through the centre.

Health officials and aid workers in the region said five years of unrest has exacerbated poverty, and hand-in-hand with that, malnutrition.

Cut off

The 2002 rebellion cut the northern half of the country off from the government-controlled south, sent civil servants fleeing and shut down financial institutions. People in Odienne and nearby villages told IRIN families eat one or sometimes two meals a day, compared to three before the conflict.

But even the pre-2002 diet of three meals a day did not necessarily mean that babies received the nutrients they needed. "Here, malnutrition is largely a problem of dietary habits; infants are often deprived of foods and nutrients they need," Fatimata Bamba, government health director for Odienne, told IRIN. She said women’s constant work in the fields can also mean infants don't get the attention and diet they require.

The economy is also a factor, with northern Cote d'Ivoire historically lagging behind the south in socio-economic conditions. “The north has definitely been disadvantaged compared to the south in health, education and infrastructure," said Arnim Langer, research officer with the London-based Centre for Research on Inequality, Human Security and Ethnicity.

These disparities - stemming from colonial and post-colonial development policies - play into the country's current conflict. “The disadvantage of the north in socio-economic terms compared to the south has been and continues to be a major issue."

Influx of NGOs

Today, Odienne residents are used to seeing aid agencies milling around town, but that was not the case before the 2002 rebellion. The head of WFP’s Odienne office, Marc Sibiri Dao, said the region has not historically been on the radar screens of aid organisations. “In the past there was very little humanitarian intervention in the region. We could say it was more or less abandoned.”

Ouattara at the Madinani health center said thanks to assistance by aid organisations and donors since early in the conflict, health workers have been able to carry out studies on malnutrition in the area as well as awareness campaigns on infant health and the signs of malnutrition.

“In the past, generally women would come with their infants only when the child had an associated illness, such as a bad cough or a fever or diarrhea. It’s when they get here we see that it’s a case of malnutrition - and we tell the women, this is malnutrition and it can be treated. The women are skeptical. But we’ve started to go around educating women about malnutrition; they are starting to come now.”

Madinani has long had a health center but not the resources for the surveys, education campaigns and nutritional therapy it is now able to provide. Still, all support staff - cooks, community health educators, and others - are currently working on a volunteer basis, Ouattara said.

Health director Bamba said combating infant malnutrition in the region depends heavily on grassroots education and participation. “Malnutrition cannot be detected unless communities are involved [in the community’s health] and know what malnutrition is.”

With government health workers gradually returning to the region, Bamba said, they will be working with UNICEF and other partners to step up basic health and nutrition training in rural communities.

Health officials in the region hope they will have adequate resources to continue the work. "With the help of aid organisations we have been able to start to tackle problems that existed long before the crisis. Now the question is how this will all go after they leave."