Human Trafficking in [Cote d'Ivoire Street Children in [Cote d'Ivoire] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cote d'Ivoire] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic of Cote d’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Cote d’Ivoire is a
source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked
for forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking within the
country is more prevalent than international trafficking and the majority of
victims are children. Women and girls are trafficked from northern areas to
southern cities for domestic servitude, restaurant labor, and sexual
exploitation. A 2007 study by the German government’s foreign aid
organization on child sex trafficking in two Ivoirian
districts found that 85 percent of females in prostitution are children. Boys
are trafficked internally for agricultural and service labor. Transnationally, boys are trafficked from Ghana, Mali,
Burkina Faso, and Benin to Cote d’Ivoire for forced agricultural labor, from
Guinea for forced mining, from Togo for forced construction labor, from Benin
for forced carpentry work, and from Ghana and Togo for forced labor in the
fishing industry. Women and girls are trafficked to and from other West and
Central African countries for domestic servitude and forced street vending.
Women and girls from Ghana and Nigeria are trafficked to urban centers in
Cote d’Ivoire for sexual exploitation. To a lesser extent, women are
trafficked from China, Ukraine, the Philippines, and North Africa to Cote
d’Ivoire for the same purpose. Women are trafficked from and through Cote
d’Ivoire to Europe for sexual exploitation. Reports indicate that Ivoirian children conscripted by rebel and militia groups
during the civil conflict remain with these groups and are still exploited
for purposes of forced labor in a non-combat capacity. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008 [full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** At five in the morning, well before
most children get up to go to school, 12-year-old Abula
sets out on a six-kilometre barefoot trek along a
road made of mud and stone to work on a coffee plantation in Bouafle, Côte d’Ivoire. When he gets there, wet and tired,
the foreman tells him where he is to plant that day. “You have to work fast
because they threaten to punish and starve us if we don’t do the set amount
of work,” he says. “If we can’t work because we’re ill, we risk being
physically tortured. One day I saw them torture two friends of mine who
wanted to escape. Both of them ended up dead.” ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - National armed forces and rebel groups are reported to recruit or
use children in situations of armed conflict, sometimes on a forced
basis. Rebel forces are also reported
to actively recruit child soldiers from refugee camps and other areas in the western
part of the country. Bur of Democracy, Human
Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
country was a source and destination country for trafficking in women and
children from The country's cities and farms
provided ample opportunities for traffickers, especially of children and
women. The informal labor sectors were not regulated under existing labor
laws, so domestics, most non-industrial farm laborers, and those who worked
in the country's wide network of street shops and restaurants remained
outside government protection. Internal trafficking of girls ages 9 to 15 to
work as household domestics in Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2001 [55] While noting the efforts
undertaken by the State party within its Plan of Action to fight child
trafficking, the Committee remains deeply concerned at the large number of
child victims of trafficking for the purpose of exploitation in the State
party's agricultural, mining and domestic service sectors and other forms of
exploitation. Chocolate's
bittersweet economy Outside the village of Sinikosson in southwestern Ivory Coast, along a trail
tracing the edge of a muddy fishpond, Madi Ouedraogo sits on the ground picking up cocoa pods in one
hand, hacking them open with a machete in the other and scooping the filmy
white beans into plastic buckets. It is the middle of the school day, but Madi, who looks to be about 10, says his family can't
afford the fees to send him to the nearest school, five miles away. "I
don't like this work," he says. "I would rather do something else.
But I have to do this." This type of child labor isn't
supposed to exist in Ivory Coast. Not only is it explicitly barred by law -
the official working age in the country is 18 - but since the issue first
became public seven years ago, there has been an international campaign by
the chocolate industry, governments and human rights organizations to
eradicate the problem. Yet today child workers, many under the age of 10, are
everywhere. Human
Trafficking 'Unacceptable’, Says UK Confectionary Association Nearly half the world's cocoa is
harvested in the Cote D'Ivoire. As it is a hidden trade, exact figures are
hard to come by. In 2000 the US State Department Human Rights report found
that more than 15,000 Malian children were trafficked into this area to work
as slaves both on coffee and cocoa plantations, the majority being cocoa. "Chocolate manufacturers
promised to end the use of trafficked children in harvesting the cocoa beans
that make our chocolate by 2005," explained a spokesperson from Stop The
Traffik, "but this has not been done. They
have started several worthy initiatives but are not addressing the central
issue of trafficked labour. At five in the morning, well
before most children get up to go to school, 12-year-old Abula
sets out on a six-kilometre barefoot trek along a
road made of mud and stone to work on a coffee plantation in Bouafle, Côte d’Ivoire. When he gets there, wet and tired,
the foreman tells him where he is to plant that day. “You have to work fast
because they threaten to punish and starve us if we don’t do the set amount
of work,” he says. “If we can’t work because we’re ill, we risk being
physically tortured. One day I saw them torture two friends of mine who
wanted to escape. Both of them ended up dead.” Planning
Intervention Strategies for Child Laborers in Côte d’Ivoire [PDF] [page 47 picture caption]
Eleven of the reported 108 children who were, two years earlier,
brought into Côte d’Ivoire to work on their Marabou’s plantation. The
children receive food and housing. Their only form of education is memorizing
the Koran at night. They have not received any form of wage payment for the
two years since arriving in Côte d’Ivoire. The children work harvesting
cocoa, coffee, corn, rice, cassavas and mangos. They said they were promised
an education and would be taught a job skill. Some expressed that they would
like to return home, but have no money, no idea how to get home, or where
they are. The oldest is 17 and the youngest is currently 9 years old. High
human trafficking profits increases practice in Ghana Statistics from the United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated that human trafficking was rated the World’s third most profitable illicit business venture apart from drugs and prostitution. Subsequently, the number of children trafficked from Afram Plains in the Eastern, Yeji in the Brong Ahafo, and Atitekpo in the Volta Regions countries such as The Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire in particular, for hazardous occupation had increased. Statistics from the United Nationa’s Children’s Fund (UNICEF) indicated that human
trafficking was rated the World’s third most profitable illicit business
venture apart from drugs and prostitution.
Subsequently, the number of children trafficked from Afram Plains in the Eastern, Yeji
in the Brong Ahafo, and Atitekpo in the Volta Regions countries such as The
Gambia and Côte d’Ivoire in
particular, for hazardous occupation had increased. The
Protection Project - Cote d'Ivoire [DOC] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Children have been trafficked to
Côte d’Ivoire for forced agricultural work. Thousands of Malian children may
be working on Ivorian farms. In September 2002, for example, an Ivorian
national was arrested in the Sikasso area of Mali.
Accompanying him were three children, whom he was allegedly attempting to
bring into Côte d’Ivoire. Child
agricultural workers are exposed to dangerous pesticides and other hazards. Furthermore, it is suspected that there is
a high number of prostituted children in Côte d’Ivoire, including young
Nigerian trafficking victims. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 7 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress
- Country Study How
can something so sweet taste so wrong? Forty-three percent of the cocoa
used in chocolate comes from Ivory Coast, which makes this African country
the biggest producer of cocoa worldwide. Most of the laborers on cocoa
plantations are between twelve and sixteen years old, some of them are even
younger, nine years old. These young children are treated like slaves – they
don’t receive any payment for their labor, and are beaten with sticks when
they don’t work, or try to escape. They are locked up at night, don’t get
sufficient nutrition and work eighty to one hundred hours per week. The
children are separated from their families, since they are ‘purchased’ from
their families in adjacent countries like Mali, Burkina Faso and Togo, and
they live in constant fear on the cocoa plantations. Although it is not known
how many children are enslaved in Ivory Coast, it is estimated that
approximately fifteen thousand child slaves work on cocoa, cotton and coffee
farms in this African country. UNICEF: Human Trafficking Affects Every Country in Africa www.politinfo.com/articles/article_2004_04_23_4744.html The study describes trafficking as
a dynamic phenomenon that can change from day to day depending on the
changing circumstances of a country. Mr. Rossi says that for example, before
the civil uprising in Ivory Coast, it was a major receiving country. But
since the crisis, more people are being trafficked out of Ivory Coast to
countries where they often are used as slave labor or for sexual purposes. Drissa's Story and the Origins of Slavery in Cocoa DRISSA'S STORY - Once in Korhogo,
in the Ivory Coast, Drissa was offered what sounded
like a good job on a cocoa plantation, but when he reached the isolated farm,
he was enslaved. More than 300 miles from home, far from any settlement, not
even knowing where he was, Drissa was trapped. When
he tried to run away he was savagely beaten. At night, along with 17 other
young men, Drissa was locked into a small room,
with only a tin can as a toilet. On the plantation the work is
hard. In oppressive heat, with biting flies around their heads and snakes in
the undergrowth, the slaves worked from dawn till dusk tending and collecting
the cocoa pods. Often given only braised banana to eat for months at a time,
they developed vitamin deficiencies. Weak from hunger they staggered under
great sacks of cocoa pods. If they slowed in their work, they were beaten. 'Chocolate
Slaves' Carry Many Scars Drissa is a child but does not care for
chocolate so much. He still carries the marks of his time harvesting the
cocoa beans from vast plantations of cacao trees in the Ivory Coast. Numerous wounds from beatings adorn his
back. Some are down to the bone. Drissa was a
"chocolate slave", one of an unknown number of children from West
Africa sold by their families into bondage in the Ivory Coast, the world's
largest producer of cocoa. They are
paid nothing, beaten into submission and abandoned when illness makes them
useless. Labor
Group Demands US Ban On Imported Ivory Coast Cocoa A labor-rights group is
threatening legal action to require the U.S. government to consider banning
cocoa imports from Ivory Coast, alleging that forced child labor is employed
extensively in production. "Child slaves are used on
cocoa plantations all over (Ivory Coast) without any observable programs to
stop the practice," Aristide said. After talking with cocoa farmers to
get an idea of their demand for labor and what type they expect to employ, he
said he found that farmers are pressed to cut labor costs to maintain income
as cocoa prices have plummeted. Aristide suggested that one simple solution
could be for the large multinational cocoa processors to offer to pay more
for cocoa beans produced on farms certified free of indentured child labor. Slaves
to chocolate: thousands of boys toil on Ivory Coast cacao farms Aly Diabate,
from the country of Mali, was 12 years old when a slave trader promised him
$150 and a bicycle for working on a cacao farm in Ivory Coast, where 43
percent of the world's cacao is grown. Instead, Aly
was sold for about $35 to a cacao farmer, who regularly beat the boy with a
bicycle chain and branches from a cacao tree. "The beatings were part of
my life," Aly told a reporter for Knight Ridder Newspapers in 2001, after he was freed by local
authorities and returned to his Mali village. Child Slaves
Caught in Glittering Traps Mali's modern-day slave traders do
not bother with abductions any more. They lure victims with a smile.
"Hey there," a stranger called, leaning out the window of a dented
white mini-van as it chugged to a stop on a dirt road. Two teenage brothers
looked up at the driver. He introduced himself as Solo. "You looking for
work? Years later, Moumouni
and Seydou Sylla recall
how eagerly they jumped. "Yes!"
And, with that, one of Mali's most notorious child traffickers had
laid his trap. Moumouni, 14 at the time, and his
16-year-old brother had left the village with dreams of paid employment and
possessions their impoverished parents could not provide: a bike and a pair
of American jeans. "Then, come
on," Solo beckoned. "I'll take you to someone who will give you a
job. You won't even have to pay for transportation." The next day, the Sylla
brothers found themselves captive in a windowless hut -- caught in the web of
smugglers who coax unknown numbers of young people out of impoverished Mali
each year and sell them into hard labor in the prosperous country next door,
Ivory Coast. The Sylla brothers sold for the price
of a pair of shoes -- $63 apiece. The
years that followed are a blur of backbreaking labor, vicious beatings, food
deprivation and dark nights in captivity. Businessmen called "locateurs" wait in the little bus station in this
large border town, where crammed mini-buses leave for Ivory Coast every 30
minutes. They search the crowds for children traveling alone, looking lost or
begging for food. "Would you like
a great job in Cote d'Ivoire?" they ask, using the official name of the
former French colony. "I can find you one." The dusty alley behind the bus
station is brimming with vendors selling everything from food to cigarettes.
There are cobblers and shanty kiosks selling bootleg tapes of West African
pop music. Chickens and goats abound, and dust mingles with the scent of raw
meat. There also is a dark warehouse
with blackened walls and a thick wooden door covered with tin sheeting that
locks from the outside. Malian officials say slave traders sometimes keep
their young victims here overnight so they can't escape. Africa: Migrants, Slavery www.migrationint.com.au/news/american_samoa/may_2001-18mn.asp Mali and Slavery. There are an estimated 15,000
Malian youth ages 15 to 18 who are enslaved in the Ivory Coast, lured by
smugglers who promise the youth and their parents high wages and training.
Instead, most do manual labor in cocoa plantations. According to the ILO, the best
defense against the sale of children is to have local NGOs educate villagers
about what really happens to their children, and to step up enforcement of
laws that make recruiting and enslaving children a crime. Scandal
of Britain's Child Slaves Revealed Investigators also discovered a
trade in girls who can be bought for £ 5 a time at a market in Abidjan.
Documents can be quickly acquired through corruption - after a few minutes
outside the Ministry of the Child, Welfare and the Family, a tout approached
an African producer posing as a hopeful parent - $ 500 and less than 12 hours
was all he needed for the paperwork to be in order, and for the stranger to
become, officially, his daughter. 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 [Cote d'Ivoire Street Children in [Cote d'Ivoire] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cote d'Ivoire] [other countries]