Africa: Trafficking in women and children
As a part of the coalition supporting the ratification of the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, Pambazuka News will profile various aspects of the protocol over the next six weeks. This week we will take a look at trafficking in women as it relates to the African continent. This is what the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa states:
“Article 4 – The Right to Life, Integrity and Security of the Person
2. State parties shall take appropriate and effective measures to:
g) prevent and condemn trafficking in women, prosecute the perpetrators of such trafficking and protect those women most at risk;”
Togo has seen larger numbers of traffickers selling children across the borders to Cote d`Ivoire and Nigeria, as it lies in the middle of a trucking highway, making it easy to transport people. The fact that border officials are paid little makes them more susceptible to accepting bribes, and for a small fee one can easily get a child across the border with no documentation. Many parents, desperate to earn some money or even to provide their child with a promised better-off situation, will allow their child to be taken away, and they then end up working as domestic servants or agricultural laborers.
As defined in the United Nations’ Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, trafficking is defined as “ . . . the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons . . . by improper means, such as force, abduction, fraud or coercion, for an improper purpose, like forced or coerced labor, servitude, slavery or sexual exploitation” (UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, 2000).
The trafficking of women in Africa takes a number of different forms. Women are sold and kidnapped for the purposes of sexual slavery and prostitution, domestic or commercial labor and forced soldiering. Women from around Africa are being sold not only to other African countries, but are also being sent as far away as Europe, the Middle East and North America. Once enslaved in these situations, some girls and women are forced to pay off a debt – the cost of their acquisition, their accommodation, meals, medicine, etc. Generally, conditions are unsanitary, the girls and women face violence, have no access to health care or adequate nutrition and have no options to leave. The number of women and children who have been trafficked are hard to define for a number of reasons - this is an underground industry, and also a very transient one.
Many African countries are currently not meeting the standards that are upheld by the US Department of State’s Anti-Trafficking requirements, the most in-depth report on the effort of governments worldwide to prevent and prosecute traffickers and protect survivors. Some countries do not even have laws that criminalize trafficking, while many that do are not acting strongly enough to uphold them. Lack of enforcement, failure to actually punish traffickers, corruption and, in the case of forced soldiering, compliance with paramilitary governments, are all affecting the rights of women and children in relation to their safety against being trafficked. For those women and children who have survived and escaped traffickers, government protection is often weak. Some governments offer skeleton services – shelter, rehabilitation services, demobilization - but others rely solely on non-governmental organizations to provide the assistance that is their responsibility. In addition, prevention activities, such as awareness-raising sessions and anti-trafficking training are lacking, meaning that the number of women and children who are at risk of being trafficked can only grow.
That the Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa has taken the step to include anti-trafficking measures is truly commendable. Governments will have to work diligently to ensure that this most basic human right is upheld.
* Written by Karoline Kemp, Commonwealth of Learning Young Professionals Intern, Fahamu