Pornography, adult sex fuelling child sex in Malawi – Magistrate Tembenu

Child Justice Court has attributed increased children’s sexual activity to pornographic films and adults indulging in sex in the presence of children.

Magistrate Esmie Tembenu of Blantyre Child Justice Court also revealed that increased numbers of children were also victims of child traffickers and all forms of exploitations.

Tembenu is quoted in the Sunday Times as saying that the court’s findings have revealed that “most children defile each other after watching pornographic films on either video showrooms or internet, watching their parents in the bedroom, forced by peers and listening to sex stories and also browsing pornographic magazines.”

She said most children, especially girls, tell young boys to have sex with them after being sexually abused by an adult male person.

“We are worried with the way children are engaging themselves in sexual activities,” said Tembenu.

“We, therefore, urge parents to avoid sleeping in the same bedroom with elderly children. The Censorship board should also ban pornographic materials in Malawi,” she said.

Records at the court indicate that 21 children were targets of 21 criminal offences, including six defilement cases in the Southern Region in February and March alone.

The Censorship Board recently said through its communications department that the board was in the process of enacting new legislation to govern the regulation of films and public entertainment.

The United Nations Children’s Fund and International Labour Organisation put the global figure of trafficked children at 1, 000, 000 annually, and traffickers often use adult members who are enticed with some form of payment to gain consent for removal of the child.

Tembenu said most child traffickers use deception and collaborate with orphanages to take and sell children.

“Child traffickers are either criminally collaborating with existing orphanages or falsely establishing their own orphanages and adoption structures in order to create illegal adoption procedures that enable them to overtly transfer children,” she said.