Human Trafficking in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]
 

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

Republic of Zimbabwe                                                               [ Country-by-Country Reports ]

The Republic of Zimbabwe is located in S central Africa [map] and is bordered by Zambia (N), by Mozambique (NE & E), by South Africa (S), and by Botswana (SW & W).  Harare (formerly Salisbury) is its capital and largest city.  The HIV/AIDS pandemic; declining economic performance; political polarization, unfavorable environmental conditions (drought and other natural phenomena); policy constraints, limited donor support for development programs; and depleted capacity in the social service sectors have led to the world’s fastest rise in child mortality.

Zimbabwe is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Large scale migration of Zimbabweans to surrounding countries—as they flee a progressively more desperate situation at home—has increased, and NGOs, international organizations, and governments in neighboring countries are reporting an upsurge in these Zimbabweans facing conditions of exploitation, including human trafficking. Rural Zimbabwean men, women, and children are trafficked internally to farms for agricultural labor and domestic servitude and to cities for domestic labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Women and children are trafficked for domestic labor and sexual exploitation, including in brothels, along both sides of the borders with Botswana, Mozambique, South Africa, and Zambia. Young men and boys are trafficked to South Africa for farm work, often laboring for months in South Africa without pay before “employers” have them arrested and deported as illegal immigrants. Young women and girls are lured to South Africa, the People’s Republic of China, Egypt, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada with false employment offers that result in involuntary domestic servitude or commercial sexual exploitation. Men, women, and children from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia are trafficked through Zimbabwe en route to South Africa. Small numbers of South African girls are trafficked to Zimbabwe for domestic servitude.   - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2008  [full country report]

 

 

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Zimbabwe.  Some of these links may lead to websites that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false.  No attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content.

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Reports of Rape and Torture Inside Zimbabwean Militia

For Ms. Siyangapi's secret was not merely her own. Her appearance was also testimony to one of the least documented — and most brutal — practices of the military enforcers of Zimbabwe's authoritarian government, enforcers from whom she now has to hide. Ms. Siyangapi told listeners that month that she had been abducted from a Bulawayo street market in November 2001 and forcibly enrolled in the National Youth Service, a ragtag, government-run paramilitary group formed three years ago by the government to stifle growing political dissent among Zimbabwe's civilians.  Her duties, however, were not political: during her nine-month stay in a training camp and later at a paramilitary base, she said, she was raped almost nightly, sometimes several times a night, by some of the hundreds of young male conscripts there.  To the extent she had proof, she offered it to the crowd: a 6-month-old baby girl named Nocthula, or Peace.  "At night, they removed the globes from the light sockets," Ms. Siyangapi, 22, said in an interview at a hide-out in South Africa, to which she fled after escaping Bulawayo in July. "Sometimes there were 10 boys. They didn't leave until 3 a.m. If you cried, you were beaten."

Amnesty International documented cases of rape within the Youth Service in a report released in April. The Amani Trust, perhaps the most active human rights group currently in Zimbabwe, has estimated that as many as 1,000 women are being held in Youth Service camps as sexual servants. The trust, an affiliate of the International Council for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, assists victims of political violence.

 

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U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs

INCIDENCE AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - The traditional practice of offering a young girl as payment to settle inter-family feuds continues to occur in Zimbabwe, as does early marriage of young girls.  Zimbabwe is considered a source and transit country for a small number of children trafficked for forced labor and sexual exploitation.  Within Zimbabwe, a small number of children are reportedly trafficked internally to southern border towns for commercial sexual exploitation.

Bur of Democracy, Human Rights & Labor - Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – The traditional practice of offering a young girl in marriage as compensatory payment in interfamily disputes continued during the year. Arranged marriage of young girls also continued. The legal age for a civil marriage is 16 for girls and 18 for boys. Customary marriage, recognized under the Customary Marriages Act, does not provide for a minimum marriage age for either boys or girls; however, the SOA prohibits sexual relations with anyone younger than 16 years of age. Child welfare NGOs reported that they occasionally saw evidence of underage marriages, particularly in isolated religious communities or among HIV/AIDS orphans but lacked meaningful statistics on its prevalence. Musasa Project reported an increase in instances where families pledged girls in marriage and even unborn babies in exchange for economic protection. Such girls often "married" well before the age of 12.

There was little information on the extent of trafficking beyond anecdotal reports of girls exchanging sex for passage across the South African border, women lured to other countries with false job promises, immigration officials of neighboring countries sexually abusing children during deportation, children working as domestic or agricultural workers, and employers requiring sex from undocumented Zimbabwean workers in South Africa under threat of deportation. There also were anecdotal reports that victims were trafficked to border areas and into Botswana and South Africa. Likewise, there were anecdotal reports that victims were transited through the country to South Africa from Botswana, Ghana, and East Africa.

Anecdotal information suggested that citizens who emigrated to seek a better life were exploited while employed illegally in a neighboring country, when being deported, or after being lured to another country by false employment schemes. The groups at highest risk were HIV/AIDS orphans and displaced persons.

Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1996

[13] The Committee notes with concern the persistence of behavioral attitudes in the society as well as cultural and religious practices, which, as recognized by the State party, hamper the implementation of children's rights. Mention can be made in this regard of the difficulties in ensuring birth registration in remote areas of abandoned and refugee children, as well as of the situation of female victims of practices such as ngozi (girl child pledging), lobola (bride price) and early marriage, and of disabled children.

Combat Human Trafficking

[X-Files - Mon 14 May 2007 1029 ] [Posted to the web 10 April 2007]

Markets for body parts in the southern Africa region seem to be on the upsurge as reports indicate that numbers of missing girl children and women are shooting up, particularly in neighbouring countries.  The human parts found in the plastic bag in Bindura are suspected breasts and private parts of a woman probably trafficked under the pretext of job promises.  Human body parts are believed to enhance profits in business and the belief seems to be widespread in this region.

Zimbabwe - A centre for Human Trafficking

The Zimbabwean government has rejected assertions by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) that human trafficking is a growing phenomenon in the southern African country, despite the existence of enormous evidence on the ground.

United States Mulls Further Sanctions on Zimbabwe Over Human Trafficking

The U.S. administration said it might impose sanctions on Zimbabwe, already hit with so-called targeted sanctions aimed at the country's leadership, because the Harare government has failed to take action on human trafficking.

The White House said Zimbabwe made no progress during a 90-day grace period given a number of countries listed in June as deficient by the State Department. Other countries called “worst offenders” included Nnorth Korea, Iran, Sudan and Cuba.

Hunger forces Zim girls into forced marriages

Faced with starvation after six years of poor harvests, Zimbabweans are resorting to centuries-old traditions of "forced marriages", known in the local Shona language as "kuzvarira", for survival.

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 7   Civil Liberties: 6   Status: Not Free

Human Rights Overview by Human Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide

Nip Human Trafficking in the Bud

Reports of organised human trafficking and smuggling gangs in Zimbabwe are disturbing and call for swift action to nip it in the bud before the problem gets deeply rooted.  Scores of foreigners, mostly Asians of Pakistan origin have been smuggled into the country, where they perceive huge opportunities to engage in illicit activities.  Immigration officials and the police have managed to bust trafficking rings involving nationals from Pakistan, Rwanda, Burundi and Somalia

But for the majority of the victims of human trafficking, promises of wealth and better life often turn out to be modern-day slavery.  Young men and women are lured by agents who cash in on the dreams of the poor to make it big in developed countries or African countries with opportunities like Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana.  In Europe, the majority of the victims are women, who come from eastern European countries such as Albania, Kosovo, Serbia, and Lithuania. However, increasing numbers are also coming from Africa, Zimbabwe included.

Section IV  Clinical and therapeutic responses [PDF DOWNLOAD]

[Sect IV, Ch 19] CASE STUDIES OF CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN ZIMBABWE (BY CLARE RUDD)INTRODUCTION - In this chapter, case studies concerning children who were seen at the clinics are presented.

Reports of Rape and Torture Inside Zimbabwean Militia

For Ms. Siyangapi's secret was not merely her own. Her appearance was also testimony to one of the least documented — and most brutal — practices of the military enforcers of Zimbabwe's authoritarian government, enforcers from whom she now has to hide. Ms. Siyangapi told listeners that month that she had been abducted from a Bulawayo street market in November 2001 and forcibly enrolled in the National Youth Service, a ragtag, government-run paramilitary group formed three years ago by the government to stifle growing political dissent among Zimbabwe's civilians.  Her duties, however, were not political: during her nine-month stay in a training camp and later at a paramilitary base, she said, she was raped almost nightly, sometimes several times a night, by some of the hundreds of young male conscripts there.  To the extent she had proof, she offered it to the crowd: a 6-month-old baby girl named Nocthula, or Peace.  "At night, they removed the globes from the light sockets," Ms. Siyangapi, 22, said in an interview at a hide-out in South Africa, to which she fled after escaping Bulawayo in July. "Sometimes there were 10 boys. They didn't leave until 3 a.m. If you cried, you were beaten."

Amnesty International documented cases of rape within the Youth Service in a report released in April. The Amani Trust, perhaps the most active human rights group currently in Zimbabwe, has estimated that as many as 1,000 women are being held in Youth Service camps as sexual servants. The trust, an affiliate of the International Council for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture, assists victims of political violence.

Earning a Life: Working Children in Zimbabwe

The important question we need to address is not the fact that children work, but rather the conditions under which they work. Stopping children from working for their livelihood is likely to do them more harm than good. We need to prevent not the work of children, but the abuse of working children.

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Human Trafficking in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]
Street Children in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]
Child Prostitution in  [Zimbabwe]  [other countries]