New HRW report on child-trafficking

The international watchdog Human Rights Watch has just released a report documenting the trafficking of children in Togo, in particular girls used as domestics and market vendors and boys made to work as labourers on farms. The report dated April 2003, and titled: 'Borderline Slavery Child Trafficking in Togo', notes that hundreds of trafficked children are either sent from, received in or transited through Togo. It said the children were often recruited on false promises of education, professional training and paid employment. Often they were transported within and across national borders under sometimes life-threatening conditions, ordered into hazardous, exploitative labor, subjected to physical and mental abuse by their employers. And, if they escaped or were released, they were denied the protection necessary to reintegrate them into society. An "appalling chain of events" According to HRW, their stories disclose "an appalling chain of events" that the Togolese government has thus far failed to break. The report said Togo's trade in children is illustrative of a larger, regional phenomenon involving at least 13 West African countries. Based on the testimony of children and local experts, HRW documented four routes of child trafficking into, out of, and within Togo. These include: - the trafficking of Togolese girls to Gabon, Benin, Nigeria, and Niger; - the trafficking of girls within Togo, especially to the capital, Lome. - the trafficking of girls from Benin, Nigeria, and Ghana to Togo; - the trafficking of boys to Nigeria, Benin and Cote d'Ivoire. Children interviewed by the organisation came predominantly from poor, agricultural backgrounds and had generally had little schooling before being trafficked. In numerous cases, children were recruited by traffickers after running out of money to pay for school. HIV/AIDS indirectly increases vulnerability Many of those interviewed were trafficked following the death of at least one parent. Others had parents who were divorced, or at least one parent living and working away from home. HIV/AIDS, a growing cause of orphanhood in Togo, was identified by some experts as a possible factor with regard to susceptibility to child trafficking. Girls interviewed were typically recruited into domestic or market labour either directly by an employer or by a third-party intermediary. Most recalled some degree of family involvement in the transaction, such as parents accepting money from traffickers, distant relatives paying intermediaries to find work abroad, or parents handing over their children based on promises of education, professional training or paid work. Following their recruitment, girls' journeys away from home often involved an intermediate stop where they could be left to fend for themselves for weeks or months at a time, before being transported to another country or city by car or by boat. Many lose their lives along the way The organisation documented numerous cases of girls taking boats from Nigeria to Gabon, a perilous and sometimes fatal journey, it said, adding that in one case, a boat capsized off the coast of Cameroon and nine girls died. Those who managed to make it to their destinations were deposited in the homes of employers, where they performed long hours of domestic and market work. From as early as 3:00 or 4:00 a.m., children tended gardens, transported and sold market goods and baked bread. At night, they worked as housemaids, prepared food and cared for small children. The organisation documented astonishing cases of girls as young as three or four years old being forced to carry other infants or sell merchandise. Almost no girl received any remuneration for her services. Many recounted incidents of physical and emotional abuse, often leading them to escape and live in the street. Officials from the non-governmental organisation (NGO) Terre des Hommes told HRW they had interviewed numerous trafficked girls who experienced sexual abuse in the home, and that some had tested positive for HIV. One child told HRW she was forced to sleep in the same bedroom as a male boarder and was "afraid he would rape me". Boys tricked with promises of radios, bicycles Boys interviewed by HRW were for the most part recruited into agricultural labour in southwestern Nigeria. A small number worked on cotton fields in Benin, and one child was recruited for factory work in Cote d'Ivoire, the report said. Traffickers tended less to make arrangements with boys' parents, preferring to make direct overtures to the boys themselves, tempting them with the promise of a bicycle, a radio, or vocational training abroad, it noted. Contrary to expectation, they were taken on long, sometimes perilous journeys to rural Nigeria and ruthlessly exploited. Most were given short-term assignments on farms where they worked long hours in the fields, seven days a week. "When we were finished with one job, they would find us another one," one child told HRW. Boys worked from as early as 5:00 a.m. until late at night, sometimes with hazardous equipment such as saws or machetes. Some described conditions of bonded labour, whereby their trafficker would pay for their journey to Nigeria and order them to work off the debt. Many recalled that taking time off for sickness or injury would lead to longer working hours or corporal punishment. Abusers violate a host of UN protocols The abuses documented fall squarely within the definition of child trafficking in the United Nations Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish the Trafficking of Persons, Especially Women and Children, Supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational Organized Crime (2000); known as the Trafficking Protocol. Togo has signed but not ratified both the Trafficking Protocol and the Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (2000), HRW said. It has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (1989) and also International Labour Organization (ILO) Convention No. 182 on the Prohibition and Immediate Action for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour (1999), which obliges signatories to take "immediate and effective measures" to eliminate child trafficking "as a matter of urgency". At the regional level, Togo has participated in multilateral negotiations towards a regional anti-trafficking protocol for West Africa and has signed numerous declarations of commitment to eradicate the practice, according to HRW. Action lags behind signatures Despite accepting these obligations, HRW said, Togo had made insufficient progress in reducing the number or severity of its child trafficking cases. The watchdog said the interviews conducted by its researchers revealed the inadequacy of Togo's system of protecting and rehabilitating trafficked children. The country's effort to develop a tougher response to child trafficking in domestic law was on the wrong track, the organisation added. To all West African governments implicated in the trafficking of children, including Togo, Benin, Nigeria, Niger, Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana and Gabon, HRW recommended, among other issues, that they take immediate and effective steps to prosecute child trafficking under domestic law, including the ratification of the Trafficking Protocol and the Optional Protocol on the rights of the child also of 2000. It recommended also that they enact legislation making child trafficking and offence, in keeping with the various protocols related to the protection of minors. In the meantime, HRW said, states should promptly investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators of trafficking in children, using existing penal laws. The full report