Human Trafficking in Southern Africa
Research Findings
As stated on IOM document on Human Trafficking in Southern Africa, victims of human trafficking suffer human rights violations at all stages of the trafficking process. In Southern Africa and elsewhere, poverty is usually identified as the primary root cause of trafficking.
However, poverty does not exist in a vacuum. Economic and social vulnerability is often caused or aggravated by violations of the political, civil, economic and/or social human rights of certain groups. Throughout the region, women and girls, in particular, are affected by discrimination. They frequently suffer from discriminatory access to education, training and the formal labour market; receive lower wages than men and suffer disproportionably from unemployment.
Women and children are often victims of violence in the home and in the workplace, and are increasingly affected by the consequences of HIV/AIDS. Certain accepted cultural practices may also violate human rights of women and children, particularly forced or early marriages. All these factors contribute to the decision to migrate in search of a better life and consequently make women and children vulnerable to being trafficked.
Along its incursion by different countries in Southern Africa, IOM has found as other causes of trafficking the environmental degradation (natural disasters), socio-political instability, and discriminatory cultural practices and attitudes. In the Mozambican side the studies found also as a push factor of child trafficking the lack of implementation of legislation and the natural disasters.
It is also important to emphasize that the studies on trafficking in Mozambique, Zambia and South Africa agree that some Southern Africa countries serve as transition points of victims trafficked in Europe to other continents. Southern Africa is also regarded as origin zone for adolescents and youngsters trafficked to the European continent(²). Mozambique as a matter fact is appointed as a transition country of victims recruited in the centre and the corner of Africa, with South Africa as a destination.
During the trafficking process, traffickers violate an extensive array of human rights in their treatment of their victims. They may subject them to physical, psychological and sexual violence, restrict their movement, deny them the right to control over their own bodies, fail to provide a safe and healthy working environment, confiscate their wages and generally subject them to inhuman and degrading treatment, forced labour, slavery-like practices or slavery. In addition, the states violate the human rights of victims by not enacting or enforcing laws to protect them.
Post-trafficking, the state may further violate the rights of trafficked persons, by arresting, detaining and punishing them, deporting them back into the hands of traffickers, failing to provide adequate care or protection to victims (particularly persons under 18), or failing to provide access to redress and compensation through the justice system. Many governments, in fact, "re-victimize" the victim, by treating them as criminals, failing to protect their dignity during court procedures, or by not providing essential services and protection in the aftermath of trafficking.
Definition of Child Trafficking
According to the UN ODCCP Protocol to Prevent, Suppress, and Punish Trafficking in Persons, child trafficking is the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons, by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of deception, of the abuse of power or of position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation.
Human Rights Implications and the Role of the South African Human Rights Commission(*)
Introduction
Human dignity, the achievement of equality and the advancement of human rights and freedoms are the key founding values of the post-apartheid South African society. In the context of trafficking of persons, our Constitution, in reflecting the founding values of our new society, makes the following provisions:
- The right for every person to have his or her dignity respected and protected(1)
- The right to freedom and security of the person including the right not be treated in a cruel, inhuman or degrading way and the right to security in and control over one’s body(2)
- The right not to be subjected to slavery, servitude or forced labour(3)
- Freedom of movement(4)
Human Trafficking as a Crime
The Trafficking Protocol requires States to criminalize human trafficking. The UN Protocol definition of human trafficking provides a basis for developing a common strategy among law enforcement, government officials and NGOs. In addition, it provides a basis for States to harmonize their criminal provisions against trafficking, creating conditions more conducive to cross-border cooperation, investigation and prosecution.
Consequences of child abuse and trafficking
The growing exploitation of children around the world today is a horrifying fact. The abuse and trafficking of children, in particular, have severe consequences both at individual and community level, undermining the personal development of the children and also bringing serious problems to the entire communities and state security.
Relationship between trafficking and HIV/AIDS
The HIV/AIDS pandemic can be seen as both a cause and a consequence of trafficking in children.
Studies
Studies carried out in the Southern Africa Region on human trafficking point out that thousands of women and children are trafficked across international borders, every year.