JUBA – South Sudan’s National Civil Society Coalition has urged authorities to sustain efforts to combat child trafficking, warning that years of weak intervention have allowed the practice to persist, following the army’s arrest of eight suspects linked to an alleged trafficking network in Juba.
Bol Deng Bol, chairperson of the coalition, said child abductions had continued for generations, with insecurity and weak law enforcement contributing to the problem.
“This act has existed for generations, and since independence, there has not been any drastic and consistent intervention against it, making it seemingly a normal practice,” Bol said in a statement on Monday.
The South Sudan People’s Defence Forces (SSPDF) said its military intelligence personnel had arrested eight suspects during an operation targeting alleged trafficking activities in Suk Darfur, northeast of Juba.
According to the army, residents had reported 23 children missing over the past three years. Investigators allegedly uncovered a network in which children were lured, held in houses and sold to buyers.
The military said a boy abducted about 20 days earlier had been recovered from Greater Pibor Administrative Area and reunited with his family. Eight other children had been traced but were awaiting repatriation at the time of the announcement.
The army alleged that children were sold in Juba for between 9 million and 15 million South Sudanese pounds, while prices in parts of Greater Pibor were reportedly quoted in cattle. The allegations have not been tested in court.
Bol said the coalition welcomed the SSPDF’s intervention but called for a coordinated response involving other government agencies and local authorities.
The coalition linked child abductions in Greater Pibor, Jonglei, Eastern Equatoria and Central Equatoria to communal conflicts, cattle raiding, road ambushes and ineffective law enforcement and justice systems.
The problem has also drawn international concern. The US State Department’s 2025 Trafficking in Persons Report identified weak law enforcement and limited judicial capacity as obstacles to combating trafficking in South Sudan.