Agencies – Indonesian authorities posted police guards at refugee camps today to protect children orphaned by last week's tsunamis from child traffickers.
The UN confirmed two attempts to snatch children in Indonesia's devastated Aceh province, the first independent verification of widespread fears that children across the Indian Ocean region could fall prey to traffickers.
The Indonesian government banned children under 16 from leaving the country on Monday in an attempt to halt a potential trade in tsunami orphans.
The UN's children's agency, Unicef, warned that the disaster was the "perfect opportunity" for traffickers in Indonesia to sell youngsters into forced labour or sexual slavery in wealthy neighbouring countries such as Malaysia and Singapore. A text message was being sent around Malaysia offering three hundred Aceh orphans aged three to ten for illegal adoption, Unicef spokesman John Budd told Reuters yesterday.
Today the Malaysian government warned its citizens that only official channels were acceptable for adopting children, but said there was no evidence thus far that children from Indonesia had been smuggled into the country. Mr Budd said there were unconfirmed reports of up to 20 children being taken to Malaysia, and possibly hundreds to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
Criminal gangs are believed to be posing as aid agencies or family friends to gain access to children either orphaned by the tsunamis or separated from their families. Though Unicef has expressed concern for children throughout the Indian Ocean region, Aceh was particularly hard hit, and around 35,000 children lost one or both parents in the December 26 disaster.
Aceh is also close to the port city of Medan and island of Batam, well-known transit points for gangs shipping children and teenagers out of the country.
"I don't think you could have a more vulnerable child on earth than a child in this situation," Mr Budd said. "A young child who has gone through what they have witnessed will be barely surviving in terms of psychological health."
"This is a situation that lends itself to this kind of exploitation. Our concern here is ... whether these children are frankly turned into child slaves, if you will, or abused and exploited. They could be put to work – domestic labour, sex trade, a whole series of potential abuses," said Unicef's director, Carol Bellamy.
Unicef and other aid agencies intend to set up special centres that will focus on children's needs within five Aceh refugee camps by the end of the week, and 15 more shortly after.
In Thailand, police have continued to hunt for a missing 12-year-old Swedish boy whose father and grandfather believe he was abducted after becoming separated from his mother, who is still missing, and his brother and sister, who are both now back in Sweden.
Thai police today released a German man who left hospital near Kaho Lak on Monday with a youngster, at first thought to be the missing Swedish boy, after questioning him about possible kidnapping. Police confirmed the man's account that he had helped reunite two German boys with their parents and a Swedish youth with his mother. "We have ruled out the theory that this man kidnapped anyone," police spokesman Vichai Boonruen said.