Oshana Police Commander Commissioner Naftal Sakaria says the issue of Angolan children selling items at shopping malls needs a collective solution.

Commissioner Sakaria says the matter constitutes child labour.

Some members of society have been calling on the police to remove them from the streets.

"It is really a complicated matter. If you follow immigration laws, I can round them up, but I need a place to keep them. I need food to feed them while waiting for a tribunal to decide on the repatriation. If you repatriate them because it was done, round them up, take them to the borders, and hand them over to officials on the other side. By the time you reach Oshakati, if you make a stop somewhere, you will find them already on the roads selling their items."

Sakaria says deporting the children has not been effective because the borders are open, and it also involves bilateral issues and many consultations that need to take place among stakeholders.

"Remember, when I say it is a complex matter, it can also be political. The relationship between Angola and Namibia is of a historical nature; therefore, we try to say it is bilateral so that it is dealt with by the countries, but as law enforcement, we just don't fold our hands and say no."

He says last year, they rounded up the children and took them to the Patrick Iyambo Training Centre, where a meeting between the police and the affected community, immigration, NamRA, gender and labour ministries, and the Angolan Consulate was convened.

The children's parents were advised to refrain from using the children, but their efforts fell on deaf ears as the majority of parents reasoned that there is no other survival mechanism than that.