Namibia is increasingly confronted with a reality that is at once heartbreaking and urgent: young children from Angola, some accompanied, many unaccompanied, are roaming the streets of our towns and cities, from the border provinces to Swakopmund, Mariental, and beyond.
They are searching for food, safety, perhaps even a future. We see them, we hear them, often feel pity, but we have not yet responded with the resolve, the coordination or the compassion this challenge demands.
Former leaders like governor Sabastian Ndeitunga of Ohangwena and former president Hifikepunye Pohamba have raised the alarm. They stress that these children’s health and safety are at risk. They note that in many cases, Angolan minors are put to work, herding cattle, tending goats, vending curios, wandering streets unprotected. In some instances, children live without formal identification, without access to education, without stable shelter. These are not just problems for one region or one group, they are Namibia’s problems too.
Indeed, human trafficking and sexual crimes are on the rise. Poverty-driven migration across our borders, combined with weak social protection and security oversight, creates fertile ground for exploitation. The risk is that these children become invisible victims, forced laborers, sexual exploitation targets, or simply lost to illness, neglect, or violence.
Namibia has legal tools and frameworks in place: The National Action Plan on Trafficking in Persons (2023-2027) aims to identify, protect, and rehabilitate victims. But legal frameworks are empty without implementation, public awareness, funding, and cross-border coordination. And on the ground, many children remain unprotected, roaming, unschooled, unregistered.
What then must be done? Specifically, the ministries that bear immediate responsibility must step up: the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (or Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare, depending on official nomenclature) and the Ministry of International Cooperation (and Home Affairs / Immigration where relevant).
What the ministries must do
- Stronger identification and registration systems
• Nameless, undocumented children are more vulnerable. The Ministry of Women and Child Welfare must work with Home Affairs and Immigration to ensure a system whereby every child, especially migrants, can be registered swiftly. Birth registration, identity documents, or at least temporary status should be made accessible even for non-citizen children.
• Portable documentation should be coordinated with local councils in border areas; social workers, health clinics, and schools should be empowered to assist in verifying identity. - Safe shelters and basic service access
• Immediate interventions: more shelters, especially in vulnerable and transit towns, offering food, medical care, psychosocial support.
• The Ministry of Women and Child Welfare should partner with NGOs, churches, and donor agencies to scale up centers like the Ondangwa National Youth Service Centre, which already helps children engaged in street vending.
• These centres must be well-staffed, with trained social workers, child psychologists, and linkage to education and health services. - Integrating education & school access
• Education is a powerful stabiliser. Former President Pohamba, for example, has urged that Angolan children working in Namibia should be brought into the school system.
• The Ministry of Education in cooperation with Women and Child Welfare must review policies to accept migrant children, especially Angolans, from border regions, ensure language or cultural support, waive fees where possible, and provide catch-up programs. - Cross-border collaboration
• Because many children originate in Angola’s drought-affected southern provinces, cooperation with the Angolan government is essential. Joint border patrols, shared intelligence, and agreements on safe and dignified repatriation must be routine.
• The Ministry of International Cooperation should lead negotiations with Angola to establish formal channels for family reunification, return, and reintegration of children who cannot stay in Namibia but cannot be left to fend for themselves. - Prevention, awareness & law enforcement
• Strengthen laws on trafficking, forced labor, and sexual exploitation and ensure enforcement. Namibian law already criminalizes trafficking and child exploitation.
• Border officials, immigration, police, and community leaders need training to recognise signs of trafficking and exploitation. Children in street vending, begging, or crafts sales should not be assumed normal, they may be vulnerable.
• Public awareness campaigns should inform communities that traffickers prey on poverty, anonymity, lack of documentation, and desperation. Citizens can be allies in protecting children, not just by reporting suspicious activity but by supporting local shelters, schools, and NGOs. - Long-term social protection and poverty alleviation
• Many of these children cross due to food shortages, drought, displacement or extreme poverty in their home areas. Namibia must contribute to regional efforts to address climate stress, food insecurity, and border region development, alongside Angola and donors.
• Ministry of International Cooperation should mobilise donor support for cross-border programs, livelihood support in border communities, and investment in infrastructure that prevents displacement from becoming desperation.
This is not just a humanitarian issue. It is a moral, social, and security issue. When children wander our streets, unprotected and uneducated, they become vulnerable to crime, exploitation, trafficking, outcomes that harm individuals, communities, and the nation’s social fabric. To remain passive is to share in the responsibility.
The voices of leaders like Ndeitunga and Pohamba are right: concern must translate into action.
The Ministries of Women and Child Welfare and International Cooperation together with Home Affairs, Education, law enforcement, civil society and Angola’s government must converge on a strategy that is humane, effective, and enduring.
Namibia must not bury its head in the sand, claiming “not our problem.”
These children are already here. Their fate is tied to ours as neighbors, as a nation, and as a community that values human dignity. Let us find solutions, not tomorrow, but today.
