Human Trafficking in [Mali Street Children in [Mali] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mali] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic
of Mali [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Mali is a source, transit, and destination country for women
and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial
sexual exploitation. Victims are trafficked from rural to urban areas within
Mali and between Mali and other West African countries, most notably Burkina
Faso, Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, and Mauritania. Women and girls are
trafficked primarily for domestic servitude and, to a lesser extent, sexual
exploitation, and boys are trafficked for forced begging and forced labor in
agriculture and gold mines. Mali may be a transit country for victims,
primarily adults, trafficked from other African countries through Mali to
North Africa and Europe. Although slavery is illegal in Mali, slavery-related
practices, rooted in historical master-slave relationships, continue in some
rural areas of the country. - 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 *** Chocolate
and Slavery: Child Labor in Cote d'Ivoire SLAVERY AND THE LINK TO CHOCOLATE - Slave traders are trafficking
boys ranging from the age of 12 to 16 from their home countries and are
selling them to cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. They work on small farms
across the country, harvesting the cocoa beans day and night, under inhumane conditions.
Most of the boys come from neighboring
Mali, where agents hang around bus
stations looking for children that are alone or are begging for food. They
lure the kids to travel to Cote d'Ivoire with them, and then the traffickers
sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor (Raghavan,
"Lured..."). ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The Government of Mali is one of nine countries
participating in the US DOL-funded ILO-IPEC project to combat the trafficking of children for
exploitive labor in West and Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
country was a source, transit, and destination for trafficking. Most of the
trafficking occurred within the country's borders during the year. Children
were trafficked to rice fields in the central regions; boys were trafficked
to mines in the south; and girls were trafficked for involuntary domestic
servitude in Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 1999 [23] The Committee welcomes the
recent initiative undertaken by the State party in establishing the National
Commission to Study inter-country Adoption and Combat Trafficking in
Children. The Committee notes that the final report of the Commission, due in
October 1999, will include legislative and other recommendations to protect
the rights of children in situations of adoption and to prevent and combat
the phenomenon of trafficking in children. The Committee remains concerned,
however, at the absence of legislation, policies and institutions to regulate
inter-country adoptions. The lack of monitoring with respect to both domestic
and inter-country adoptions and the widespread practice of kalifa (informal adoptions) are also matters of concern. [36] 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. Protection Project - Mali [DOC] www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/mali.doc FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Child trafficking for forced
labor predominates in Mali. In addition, women are trafficked to Kuwait and
Saudi Arabia to work as domestic servants.
Girls are also recruited in Nigeria and brought to Mali for commercial
sexual exploitation. An estimated 200
Malian girls younger than 17 years of age are working as domestic servants
for wealthy people in Guinea. The death of three girls in a road accident in
November 2003 led to investigations that uncovered a network that traffics
children into Guinea from Mali for unpaid domestic servitude. The three who
died were part of a group of eight Malian girls trafficked into the country.
Women from Guinea reportedly travel to Bamako, the capital of Mali, to
recruit young girls for domestic jobs in Guinea. Children from the areas of Mopti, Ségou, and Sikasso are trafficked to Côte d’Ivoire to work on cotton
plantations. Most children are recruited by intermediaries and sold to
plantation owners; others are sent through family networks to work on
plantations, in mines, in construction, or in other types of manual
labor. UNICEF estimates that more than
15,000 Malian children work in Ivorian plantations. These children work in slavelike
conditions and receive little if any wages for their labor. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Free Mali Signs
Agreement With Senegal To Curb Child Trafficking Mali has signed its third
agreement with a neighboring country to fight child trafficking, which UNICEF
says occurs in 89 percent of African countries. Senegal joined Ivory Coast
and Burkina Faso as signatories to the agreement, which mandates an annual
survey of child trafficking to make sure children sent over their borders are
kept safe. GUINEA: Child trafficking from Mali revealed by car crash www.africanewssearch.com/olink.php?ARG1=http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp? ReportID=38542&SelectRegion=West_Africa&SelectCountry=GUINEA&ARG2=48724 The death of three girls in a road
accident last month led to investigations which revealed the existence of a
network the trafficks children into Guinea from neighbouring Mali for use as unpaid domestic
servants. United Nations officials in
the Guinean capital Conakry said the three who died were part of a group of
eight Malian girls smuggled into the country for use as forced labour. The five
surviving girls, two of whom were injured in the crash, were found living
with a woman in Conakry and have since been returned home. Attempts to
prevent human trafficking are making conditions worse for voluntary migrants A survey of close to 1000 migrants
in Mali found that only four had been deceived, exploited, or not paid for
their labour. Rather, young people voluntarily
sought employment abroad to experience urban lifestyles, learn new languages,
and accumulate possessions. Mali
rescues over 100 from child traffickers Malian authorities have rescued
more than 100 children and teenagers from suspected traffickers believed to
be taking them into forced labor in rice fields, officials in the West
African nation said Tuesday. Police
stopped 112 minors aged between 10 and 18 as they traveled in buses over the
weekend in the Segou region, northeast of the
capital Bamako. They arrested two suspected traffickers. Mali's
dangerous desert gateway The city of Gao
in northeastern Mali was once the wealthy capital of the great Songhay Empire of West Africa. Today it has fallen on hard times and
become the impoverished capital of human trafficking from West Africa to
Europe. Chocolate
and Slavery: Child Labor in Cote d'Ivoire SLAVERY AND THE LINK TO CHOCOLATE - Slave traders are trafficking
boys ranging from the age of 12 to 16 from their home countries and are selling
them to cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. They work on small farms across the
country, harvesting the cocoa beans day and night, under inhumane conditions.
Most of the boys come from neighboring
Mali, where agents hang around bus
stations looking for children that are alone or are begging for food. They
lure the kids to travel to Cote d'Ivoire with them, and then the traffickers
sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor (Raghavan,
"Lured..."). 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. A slave is defined by the ILO as
someone "forced to work under physical or mental threat, and where the
owner or employer controls the person completely - where a person is bought
or sold." Mali's children in
chocolate slavery At a run-down police station in Sikasso, a small town in Mali, the files on missing
children are endless. The sad truth is
that many have been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The going price is about
US$30. The local police chief is in no
doubt where the children have gone. "It's definitely slavery over
there," he said. "The kids have to work so hard they get sick and
some even die." Child
Slaves Caught in Glittering Traps 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. They number about 15,000 and their
plight is enough to "make you weep", says Malian Minister of Woman
and Family Affairs They are child slaves from Mali, between the ages of six
and 16, and they work on plantations in neighbouring
Ivory Coast, where Ms Thiero says they are
regularly beaten, starved and locked in tiny dark huts to keep them from
fleeing. "One small boy brought
me to tears when he told of how he drank his own urine for three days because
the plantation owners had locked him up without food or water," 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. 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 [Mali Street Children in [Mali] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mali] [other countries]