Human Trafficking in [Sierra Leone Street Children in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sierra Leone] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the
early years of the 21st Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SierraLeone.htm
Sierra Leone is a source, transit, and destination country
for children and women trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial
sexual exploitation. The majority of victims are children trafficked
internally within the country, largely from rural provinces, and sometimes
from refugee communities, to urban and mining centers. Within the country,
women and children are trafficked for: domestic servitude; commercial sexual
exploitation; forced labor in agriculture, diamond mining, and the fishing
industry; forced petty trading; forced street crime; and forced begging. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in
Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country
report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Children working in Lansana Fofana, BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3189299.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] BLESSINGS - Undoubtedly, the children
number several thousands, and many of them get the blessing of their parents,
who have come to see them as breadwinners of the impoverished families. Over the past few days, I have been
visiting the mine sites here and what I see is incredible. The children aged between seven and 16 go
to the mines as early as 0800 and work through to 1800. They do hard labour, like digging in soil
and gravel, before sifting with a pan for gemstones and shifting heavy mud
believed to contain diamonds. Boy soldier 'recruited' at the age of 6 The Times, March 30, 2004 business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1052901.ece [accessed 22 December 2010] Kabba
Williams is thought to have been One day in particular is etched on
his memory. At the age of 12 he was given a group of captives to kill. “I had
the nickname ‘Hungry Lion’. I was given a bayonet. They were tied up, six of
them. I stabbed them repeatedly with the knife.” ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/sierra-leone.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Trafficking in persons declined with the demobilization of child
soldiers following the end of the civil conflict. Children have been trafficked to Human Rights Reports » 2005
Country Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61591.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
country continued to be a source, transit point, and destination for
internationally trafficked persons. The majority of victims were women and
the majority of traffickers were thought to be family members or friends who
lured victims from their home villages with promises of education,
caretaking, or employment. There were no specific figures on
the number of persons trafficked. However, anecdotal reports indicated the
following: children were trafficked from the provinces to work in the capital
as laborers and commercial sex workers and to diamond areas for labor and sex
work; persons were trafficked from neighboring countries for domestic and
street labor and for commercial sex work; persons were trafficked out of the
country to destinations in west Africa, including Nigeria, Cote d'Ivoire,
Guinea, and Guinea-Bissau for labor and sex work; persons were also
trafficked to Lebanon, Europe, and North America; and the country served as a
transit point for persons trafficked from elsewhere in west Africa and
possibly the Middle East. Concluding Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of
The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 28 January 2000 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/sierraleone2000.html [accessed 22 December 2010] [52] The Committee notes the
introduction by the State party of the 1989 Adoption Act, but is nevertheless
concerned that child nationals of the State party may remain vulnerable to
problems of illegal adoption, including inter-country adoption. Trafficking of African women is thriving Francois Tillinac,
International Labour Organisation (ILO) News, May 10 2007 www.iol.co.za/news/africa/trafficking-of-african-women-is-thriving-1.352453 [accessed 14 November 2010] In January Italian police smashed
several human trafficking rings involving African and eastern European
females and netted some 800 suspects. Outside Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 3 Civil Liberties: 3 Status:
Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=22&year=2009&country=7699 [accessed 22 December 2010] Human Rights Overview Human Rights Watch www.hrw.org/africa/sierra-leone [accessed 22 December 2010] Four Nations Move Against Trafficking in Response to Bureau of International Information Programs, www.america.gov/st/washfile-english/2004/September/20040910174056cmretrop0.6162226.html [accessed 22 December 2010] "These four countries made
notable progress in many key areas including prosecution of trafficking
related cases; creating police anti-trafficking units; increasing efforts to
identify and rescue trafficking victims; drafting new anti-trafficking
legislation and procedures; and conducting high-profile public awareness
campaigns," said spokesman Scott McClellan. "These tremendous
accomplishments will punish perpetrators and help innocent victims of this
heinous crime around the world." afrol News (African News Agency), June 3, 2004 [accessed 22 December 2010] The International law history has been
written in Children working in Lansana Fofana, BBC News, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3189299.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] BLESSINGS - Undoubtedly, the children
number several thousands, and many of them get the blessing of their parents,
who have come to see them as breadwinners of the impoverished families. Over the past few days, I have been
visiting the mine sites here and what I see is incredible. The children aged between seven and 16 go
to the mines as early as 0800 and work through to 1800. They do hard labour, like digging in soil
and gravel, before sifting with a pan for gemstones and shifting heavy mud
believed to contain diamonds. Boy soldier 'recruited' at the age of 6 The Times, March 30, 2004 business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article1052901.ece [accessed 22 December 2010] Kabba
Williams is thought to have been One day in particular is etched on
his memory. At the age of 12 he was given a group of captives to kill. “I had
the nickname ‘Hungry Lion’. I was given a bayonet. They were tied up, six of
them. I stabbed them repeatedly with the knife. Aisling www.bellaonline.com/articles/art24082.asp [accessed 22 December 2010] Sierra Leone is probably is the poorest
country of the world due to the ravaging civil war and the terrorist
activities of the Revolutionary United Front, or RUF. For both men and women,
living under these conditions is producing hundreds of thousands refugees and
internal displacement. Generally speaking, it is difficult to differentiate
between women's rights and human rights. Women and children are known to be
the principal war victims. women and Children are
often submitted to rape, sexual slavery, forced labour, torture, mutilation and
forced recrutiation by the RUF. The RUF is
notoriously known to use terror against the civil population, especially
Women and Children. Violations such as these are one of their principal war
tactics. The biggest UN peacekeeping force in history is present, so now exists some hope of peace in the country. USAID/Sierra Leone Transition Strategy Phase 2 - Fy 2004 – Fy 2006 USAID At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 11 September 2011] BACKGROUND - The emergence of the
Revolutionary United Front (RUF), a loose grouping of former Sierra Leonean soldiers
and mercenaries backed by Liberian president, Charles Taylor, in early 1991
led Open letter to Permanent Representatives at the African
Union (AU) regarding the case of Charles Taylor, former President of Amnesty International, Index Number: IOR 63/007/2004, Date
Published: 3 August 2004 www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/IOR63/007/2004/en [accessed 22 December 2010] This decision is a betrayal of the
tens of thousands of African victims of the worst possible crimes imaginable
committed during the conflict in 2004 UN Commission on the Status of Women. Violence
against Women: universal but not inevitable! Amnesty International, Index Number: IOR 41/004/2004, Date
Published: 1 March 2004 www2.amnesty.se/svaw.nsf/0/924AB7A1E3C85228C1256E82002F3951?opendocument [accessed 22 December 2010] VIOLENCE IN POST-CONFLICT
SITUATIONS - Peace
processes have routinely failed to include women and to deal with gender
issues, which can result in gender-based persecution and violence being rendered
invisible in peace agreements and not taken into account in their
interpretation and implementation. For example, an AI delegation which
visited UNICEF: War fuels Jonathan Fowler, Associated Press AP, www.highbeam.com/doc/1P1-93762330.html [partially accessed 28 August 2011 - access restricted] Some 80 percent of African nations
reported "internal trafficking," where individuals do not cross
borders but are shifted around the country to meet demand for cheap household
and farm labor and prostitution. Flawed or nonexistent birth
registration makes it easier for traffickers to move youngsters between
countries, because unregistered children never formally acquire a
nationality, said Rossi. "It
becomes impossible to prove whether a young girl working as a housemaid in In sub-Saharan Victoria Brittain, The Guardian, 16 January 2003 www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/jan/16/sierraleone.westafrica [accessed 22 December 2010] Unknown numbers of the thousands
of women and girls abducted by the rebels still remain with their
"husbands" in conditions of sexual slavery, although the war was
declared over a year ago, HRW reports.
There has been no accountability for the thousands of crimes of sexual
violence, and a climate of impunity persists, the report says, allowing the
perpetrators of sexual violence (as well as other crimes) to escape justice. Survivors of rape and other sexual crimes -
some boys as well as the thousands of women and girls - need
"drastically increased funding for trauma counselling, health, education
and skills training", according to HRW. Sierra rebels free child soldiers BBC News, 26 May 2001 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1352801.stm [accessed 22 December 2010] Rebels in Children have carried out some of
the worst atrocities of the war, including hacking off the limbs of enemies
and civilians. Forced labour, human trafficking, slavery haunt us still International Labour Organisation (ILO) News, World Of
Work, No. 39, June 2001 www2.ilo.org/public/english/bureau/inf/magazine/39/human.htm [accessed 22 December 2010] The report notes that outright
slavery, though increasingly rare in the modern world, is still found in a
handful of countries, and the wholesale abduction of individuals and
communities in such conflict-torn societies as Amnesty International www.amnesty.ca/child/news/view.php?load=arcview&article=946&c=Children%20Reports [accessed 22 December 2010] MAY 2000 - CHILDREN AGAIN FORCED
INTO CONFLICT - In
his Fourth Report on UNAMSIL to the UN Security Council on 19 May 2000, the
UN Secretary-General cited preliminary reports which suggested that child
combatants were being used extensively as hostilities resumed. UNAMSIL human
rights officers who visited Masiaka on 15 May 2000
observed several child combatants, mostly boys, with the CDF, the AFRC and
former Sierra Leone Army and the reconstituted Sierra Leone Army. Some 25 per
cent of the combatants observed were under 18 and some freely admitted that
they were between 7 and 14. Almost all of them were armed. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking
& Modern-day Slavery – |
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Human Trafficking in [Sierra Leone Street Children in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Sierra Leone] [other countries]