BY FAITH KAMTAMBE:
The office of the Ombudsman has said it will, from next month, institute investigations into district councils, mainly Lilongwe, Mzuzu and Blantyre, following a complaint that they are going against laws by neglecting street children in the country.
Recently, Eye of the Child wrote the Ombudsman, Martha Mwangonde, asking her office to bail out child prostitutes within 21 days and to consider shutting down bars and brothels that abuse children in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu.
In an interview Tuesday, Mwangonde said her office also received a complaint from Youth Net and Counselling (Yoneco) regarding the matter and noted that the complaint was genuine.
“We have screened the complaint and we have found that there is merit in the claim and we have decided to investigate the same. We are scheduled to start [investigations] in August. Much as the complaints can only be about the councils, it will also involve other duty-bearers because we want, at the end of the day, to come up with a comprehensive remedial directive,” Mwangonde said.
Eye of the Child wanted the Office of the Ombudsman to charge all district commissioners for neglect, violation of Section 23 of the Malawi Constitution and Section 70 of the Child, Care, Protection and Justice Act of 2010.
Eye of the Child Executive Director, Maxwell Matewere, Tuesday thanked the Ombudsman for seeing merit in their concern.
“We are grateful that they have seen some merit in our complaint. It is high time that our authorities did their work properly not outside the law. This is the time we, as a nation, should be taking responsibility. We have received a lot of cases of children being abused for a long time,” he said.
Area 23 is said to be one of the areas in Lilongwe where drinking joints are filled with child sex workers.
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