Human Trafficking in [Benin Street Children in [Benin] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Benin] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic of Benin [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Republic of Benin [map]
is a West African country bordered by Togo (W), Burkina Faso and Niger (N);
Nigeria (E); and by the Bight of Benin (an arm of the Gulf of Guinea) in the
south. Benin is a source, transit, and
destination country for children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor
and commercial sexual exploitation. The ILO estimates that 90 percent of all
victims are trafficked within Benin, with girls trafficked primarily for
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation while boys are trafficked for
forced labor as plantation laborers, street hawkers, and construction
workers. According to the ILO, the majority of Beninese children trafficked
transnationally are destined for Nigeria, though they are also trafficked to
Cote d'Ivoire, Ghana, Niger, Mali, and Togo for the purposes listed above, as
well as for labor in mines and stone quarries. Beninese girls may be
trafficked to Europe for domestic servitude and possibly sexual exploitation.
A small number of Togolese, Nigerien, and Burkinabe children are trafficked
to Benin for the same purposes listed above. - U.S.
State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2007 [full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Scale of African
slavery revealed COMPLICITY - Much of this trade in children
often has the tacit collaboration of the victims' own families where it is
seen not so much as criminal activity but as a way for a large family to
boost its poor income. The story of Joseph in Benin is
fairly typical. When he was 13 years
old, a stranger arranged with his parents for him to go to neighbouring Togo
for a better life. However, he was put
to work from 0500 to 2300 each day as a domestic help and was regularly
beaten. It took him three years of
saving money to be able to phone home and be rescued by an uncle. Now 16
years old, he is back in school.
"I was so happy to see my little brother again when I returned
home to Benin," he says. African
"slave ship" highlights spread of child slavery Although there may be a
superficial resemblance to the African slave trade of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the driving forces behind this modern form of slavery
are entirely new. The roots of today's slave trade are to be discovered in
the way that capitalism has developed in Africa during the last few decades. The conditions of extreme poverty
in Sub-Saharan Africa have attracted transnational corporations (TNCs), which
can profit from Africa's rich mineral resources and other primary products by
exploiting the plentiful cheap labour needed to produce and process them. The
TNCs are able to sell these products in Europe and America for many times
more than they cost to produce. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
traditional practice of vidomegon, in which poor, often rural, families
placed a child in the home of a more wealthy family to avoid the burden the
child represented to the parental family, increasingly involved abuse. While
originally a voluntary arrangement between two families, the child often
faced forced labor, long hours, inadequate food, and sexual exploitation.
Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the children in vidomegon were young girls.
Children were sent from poorer families to Cotonou and then sometimes on to
Gabon, Cote d'Ivoire, and the Central African Republic to help in markets and
around the home. The child received living accommodations, while the child's
parents and the urban family that raised the child split the income generated
from the child's activities. Children were trafficked to According to a 2000 UNICEF study,
four distinct forms of trafficking occurred in the country. "Trafic‑don"
was when children were given to a migrant family member or stranger, who
turned them over to another stranger for vocational training or education.
"Trafic‑gage" was a form of indentured servitude, in which a
debt was incurred to transport the child, who was not allowed to return home
until the debt was repaid. "Trafic‑ouvrier" involved children
of ages 6 years to 12 years, who worked as artisans, construction laborers,
or agricultural or domestic workers. This was the most common variant,
estimated to be 75 percent of the total traffic of the three provinces UNICEF
surveyed in 2000. Finally, "trafic‑vente" was the outright
sale of children. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2006 [DOC] [71] While welcoming the ongoing efforts by the State
party to combat child trafficking, including the new Law on the Suppression
of Trafficking in Children, the National Policy and Strategy on Child
Protection, and the National Study on Child Trafficking, the Committee is
concerned at the information that a high number of children under 18,
especially adolescent girls, are still being trafficked for the purpose of
sexual exploitation and domestic labour in other countries. [67] The Committee is deeply concerned at the
prevalence of child labour among young children under the age of 14, at the
traditional practice of domestic servants or vidomégons, and at the increased
number of children working in the informal sector. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1999 [33] While the Committee notes the
efforts of the State party, it remains concerned at the increasing incidence
of sale and trafficking of children, particularly girls, and the lack of
adequate legal and other measures to prevent and combat this phenomenon. In
the light of article 35 and other related articles of the Convention, the
Committee recommends that the State party review its legal framework and
strengthen law enforcement, and intensify its efforts to raise awareness in
communities, in particular in rural areas. Cooperation with neighboring
countries through bilateral agreements to prevent cross-border trafficking is
strongly encouraged Report
by Special Rapporteur - 2003 [28] Action to combat trafficking
has been mobilized since the well-publicized case in April 2001 of the Etireno,
a Nigerian-registered ship thought to be carrying some 200 children from
Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Scale of African
slavery revealed COMPLICITY - Much of this trade in children often
has the tacit collaboration of the victims' own families where it is seen not
so much as criminal activity but as a way for a large family to boost its
poor income. The story of Joseph in Benin is
fairly typical. When he was 13 years
old, a stranger arranged with his parents for him to go to neighbouring Togo
for a better life. However, he was put
to work from 0500 to 2300 each day as a domestic help and was regularly
beaten. It took him three years of
saving money to be able to phone home and be rescued by an uncle. Now 16
years old, he is back in school.
"I was so happy to see my little brother again when I returned
home to Benin," he says. Labour
standards violated in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali Although Benin, Burkina Faso and
Mali have ratified the core Conventions on Forced Labour, the practice does
exist, Ms Kwateng denounces. "Many women and children are trafficked for
forced prostitution, forced labour on plantations and domestic work,"
she adds. Moreover, many Beninese,
Burkinabe and Malian children are reported to be sold to neighbouring
countries - like Togo and Côte d'Ivoire - and forced to work on plantations
or in domestic work under harsh and dangerous conditions while receiving very
low pay, if any at all. 74
additional trafficked children repatriated from Nigeria to Benin Another group of 74 trafficked
children, between the ages of 4 and 17 years old, was
repatriated to Benin on Wednesday, 15 October. Like the first
group of 116 children who were repatriated on 26 September, these
children worked in Nigerian quarries in Abeokuta. This is the second repatriation in
2 weeks of Beninese trafficked children coming from Nigeria. On 26 September,
116 children were handed over at the border under the same
conditions. According to Nigerian sources,
there might be thousands of Beninese children exploited in Nigeria. In The
Northwest: Bully for those combating worldwide slave trade Nigeria (Tier 2) has just rescued
74 child workers -- as young as age 4 -- who were kidnapped from their native
Benin and forced to work in granite pits. Thirteen children in the group had
reportedly died. Human trafficking remains huge --
about 6,000 children remain at work in Nigeria's granite pits. Traffickers
hold thousands of children, women in bondage Silinu Sogbonsi was five years old
when unknown men seized him as he walked home from school in Selinu, a little
town in the southeast of Benin, near the Nigerian border. Blindfolded, he was
pushed him into a waiting car which sped away. For several days, Sogbonsi was hustled
along by his captors on motorbikes through bush paths and on buses along
highways. Finally he arrived in a
little village he was to identify as Alamutu, near Abeokuta city in southwest
Nigeria. Here Sogbonsi joined other children, aged five to 15 on a daily
routine to dig up granite for their masters from the stone quarries that
litter the area. The children, who
earned 50 naira (US $0.38) a week, each worked 12-16 hours, crushing enough
gravel to generate 35,000 naira ($269). Every evening a lorry delivered the
gravel to construction sites in Nigeria's southwest region. LABOUR:
Nigeria, Benin Join Forces to Fight Child Trafficking The children, all males and malnourished,
were part of the inmates of about seven child-slave camps discovered in the
western Nigerian States of Ogun, Oyo and Osun, in a major breakthrough by
security operatives fighting cross-border crimes, especially child
trafficking and forced child labour. Ship
Discovered With Human Cargo 250 children have been discovered
aboard a ship in the Gabonese port. The children who were allegedly sold to human
traffickers by their parents or guardians were taken to Gabon where they were
to be resold into child labour or slavery of all kinds. According to Zardzo, the children
aboard the ship are between the ages of 9,10,and 11, who are able to help
government in the relocation of their parents or guardians. These children are said to have hailed from
the two West African countries of Togo and Benin. African
"slave ship" highlights spread of child slavery Although there may be a
superficial resemblance to the African slave trade of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the driving forces behind this modern form of slavery
are entirely new. The roots of today's slave trade are to be discovered in
the way that capitalism has developed in Africa during the last few decades. The conditions of extreme poverty
in Sub-Saharan Africa have attracted transnational corporations (TNCs), which
can profit from Africa's rich mineral resources and other primary products by
exploiting the plentiful cheap labour needed to produce and process them. The
TNCs are able to sell these products in Europe and America for many times
more than they cost to produce. Rogue Voyage of a
21st Century African Slave Ship On April 17, the Etireno limped
back into Cotonou. Upon examining the ship, local authorities said it was
"uncertain" if slaves had been aboard. Realists wondered if an even
greater evil had occurred, with the human evidence drowned at sea. Modern
Slavery - Human bondage in Africa, Asia, and the Dominican Republic SLAVE TRADING ON AFRICA'S WEST
COAST - The slave
trade in Africa was officially banned in the early 1880s, but forced labor
continues to be practiced in West and Central Africa today. UNICEF estimates
that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year. Many
of these children are from Benin
and Togo, and are sold into the domestic, agricultural, and sex industries of
wealthier, neighboring countries such as Nigeria and Gabon. SLAVE CHILDREN - The New York Times on August
10, 1997 reported that the slave trade in children seems to be increasing in
Central Africa, as well-dressed traders travel to poor rural areas in Benin
and offer parents money, from $20 to $40, in exchange for their children,
promising that the ones they take away will end up rich and successful. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
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Human Trafficking in [Benin Street Children in [Benin] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Benin] [other countries]