Human trafficking, which means illegally marketing of people for commercial purposes, appears in the forms of subjecting people to begging, sexual abuse, prostitution, forced marriage and forced labour in return for low wage and under unhealthy conditions.
In the past, human trafficking acted as a substantial income source for the West and was widely practised. This practice became a source of capital for imperial powers and little changed after it was banned by international law.
Marketing human beings like a commodity was banned by law but it was still practised behind closed doors. Human trafficking has now become an irresoluble problem since it is now carried out by the underground and organized gangs.
Invariably, girls and women who are forced into prostitution are infected with deadly HIV and AIDS viruses in the prostitution market. Human trafficking has been carried out through ages as a consequence of attempts by the strong to rule and impose sanctions on the weak.
Some young workers are subjected to hard labour, a situation that hinges on cruelty. Not many people distinguish the difference between child work and child labour. Children involved in the worst forms of labour are victims of devil-may-care exploitation and are often in total servitude.
Many work for long hours with no time off in harsh or dangerous conditions but are paid low wages. Some are not remunerated at all. Many miss formal education and are invariably in poor health. As mentioned before, girls are often harassed or abused mentally and sexually.
So, you find in towns underage quarry stone crackers, shoe-shine boys, fitters, cart pushers, sand miners, prostitutes, domestic hands, farm helps and even factory labourers. In rural areas, you find land tillers, cattle minders, cutters of hut construction poles, firewood collectors and even hunters of wild animals, some of which are vicious. Many of these young workers are virtual slaves.
Socially disadvantaged children have even been seen working in fishing vessels on the high seas. Welfare officers say exploitation of child labour has become so commonplace in Tanzania that the average person no longer sees it as a serious offence.
Africa
Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi are included in a group of "watch-list" countries that could eventually face US sanctions for failure to combat human trafficking, the State Department said in a report issued last week.
Uganda is also found to be "a source and
destination country for men, women and children subjected to forced
labour and sex trafficking," the report says.
But the Ugandan government's efforts to stem the
trade in persons are judged sufficient for the country to be included in
a higher tier that does not entail a looming threat of sanctions.
The new global survey shows trafficking to be widespread in East Africa. Family members often play a role in enslaving girls in the East African countries, the report finds.
In Burundi, for example, "some traffickers are the victims’ family members, neighbours or friends who recruit them for forced labour under the pretext of assisting with education or employment opportunities," the State Department says. "Some families are complicit in the exploitation of children and adults with disabilities, accepting payment from traffickers who run forced street begging operations."
In Tanzania, there is a great number of trafficking victims about whom there is no data. Girls and women make the highest number of victims. They are either forced into prostitution or subjected to sexual exploitation.
Many are victims of human trafficking, a diabolical business that appears to be gaining ground. The current trend sees traffickers owning stables holding ten or more girls. As with other forms of child labour — poverty, domestic servitude, the breakdown of the family and parents not seeing the importance of education, contribute to the supply of child domestic workers.
A similar pattern is seen in Tanzania, where, the report says, "the exploitation of young girls in domestic servitude" continues to be the country's largest human-trafficking problem.
Increasing numbers of children are also being sexually exploited along the Kenya-Tanzania border, according to the report. In addition, "girls are exploited in sex trafficking in tourist areas within the country."
Boys too are forced into the sex trade in Tanzania and are made to labour against their will on farms, in mines and "possibly on small fishing boats," the report adds.
In Rwanda, "older females offer vulnerable younger girls room and board, eventually pushing them into prostitution to pay for their expenses," the State Department reports. "In limited cases, trafficking is facilitated by women who supply other women or girls to clients, or by loosely organised prostitution networks, some operating in secondary schools and universities."
Children from refugee camps inside Rwanda "are brought to Kigali, Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and South Sudan at the hands of other refugees or Rwandan and Ugandan 'sugar daddies' for use in the sex trade," the report says.
Citing the UN Group of Experts and Human Rights
Watch as sources, the State Department also charges that Rwandan
government officials "recruited children" for the M23 rebel group in the
Democratic Republic of Congo.
Many children in Kenya are exploited in prostitution for the sex tourism industry on the coast as well as in eastern miraa cultivation areas and in Nyanza's gold mines, the State Department says.
"Women, 'beach boys' and sometimes a child’s own parents push children into prostitution in coastal areas to receive payments from tourists," the report adds.
East Africans are also trafficked across borders in the region as well as to countries in the Middle East, where they are exploited as domestic labourers and sex slaves, the study finds.
"Licensed Kampala-based security companies and employment agencies continued to recruit Ugandans to work as security guards, labourers and drivers in the Middle East," the report says. "Some workers recruited by these companies reported conditions indicative of forced labour while working overseas, including passport withholding, nonpayment of wages and lack of food. In addition, Ugandan women are exploited into forced prostitution in Malaysia after being recruited for work as hair dressers, nannies, and hotel staff."
South Africa is a source, transit, and destination country for trafficked men, women, and children. South African girls are trafficked within their country for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and domestic servitude, while boys are trafficked internally for use in street vending, food service, and agriculture. Anecdotal evidence suggests that South African children are forced to provide unpaid labor for landowners in return for their family occupying land or accommodation, or maintaining labor tenancy rights.
Global concern
Many of the children are victims of human trafficking. When it was agreed at the international level that human trafficking was a shame to human dignity and should be banned, the vice started to be carried out in the underground. Victims of human trafficking can also be called ‘modern slaves’ since the action aims at making use of them forcefully.
On the global level, human trafficking appears in the forms of subjecting people to begging, sexual abuse and prostitution, forced marriage, kidnapping and forced labour in return for low wage and under unhealthy conditions. People who are taken captive through physical force, fraud, deception and other forceful ways are secretly transferred to other regions.
Child sex tourism is prevalent in a number of South Africa’s cities. Women and girls from other African countries are trafficked to South Africa for commercial sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, and other jobs in the service sector; occasionally, these women are trafficked onward to Europe for sexual exploitation.
Thai, Chinese, and European women are trafficked to South Africa for debt-bonded commercial sexual exploitation. Young men and boys from Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi 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. Organized criminal groups—including Nigerian, Chinese, and Eastern European syndicates, local gangs and individual policemen facilitate trafficking into and within South Africa, particularly for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation.
The Government of South Africa does not fully comply with the minimum
standards for the elimination of trafficking; making no significant
efforts to do so. South Africa is placed on Tier 2 Watch List for a
fourth consecutive year for its failure to show increasing efforts to
address trafficking over the last year. The government provided
inadequate data on trafficking crimes investigated or prosecuted or on
resulting convictions or sentences. In addition, it did not provide
information on its efforts to protect victims of trafficking and
continued to deport and/or prosecute suspected foreign victims without
providing appropriate protective services
Major reasons for the vice
"While trafficking into forced sex work gets most of the attention at the international level, these stories show that women and girls are trafficked into all kinds of forced labour," says Seri Wendoh, the International Planned Parenthood Federation's (IPPF) senior technical officer on sexual rights and gender.
Men are trafficked for construction work, too, but this tends to be talked about simply as "migrant work", ignoring that many end up being paid very little or nothing,
Demand for cheap labour in the destination countries is a major driving force, but she believes a lack of employment in Nepal and political instability since the end of the civil war seven years ago are equally responsible. Low levels of education and awareness of the issue also play a role.
Women and children are most at risk: the Demographic and Health Survey for 2011 (pdf) found that only a third of women aged 20-24 had been to secondary school, and only half of those had completed their studies. Almost a quarter of girls in that age group had received no education.
In a country where travelling abroad to find employment opportunities is far from unusual – more than 100,000 women are thought to go to India every year as non-trafficked migrant workers – it is unsurprising that women are duped, especially if those offering the supposed jobs are people they know.
"Women living in an environment of restricted rights, limited personal freedom and few employment opportunities may decide migration is their only hope for achieving economic independence and a higher standard of living," Rana says.
Strategies to curb the vice
Government protection for trafficking victims during the reporting period remained inadequate, and formal protocols to identify and care for trafficking victims were lacking. Police referred an unknown number of internal child trafficking victims to local NGO-run shelters during the reporting period. As part of its ongoing program to assist organizations that shelter vulnerable populations, the government granted funding to some facilities that provided housing for trafficking victims, though not in a consistent or timely fashion. In 2007, the Department of Home Affairs referred one foreign child victim of trafficking to IOM for assistance. The Department of Social Development (DSD) provided the victim with shelter accommodation, schooling, and basic needs. However, DSD did not refer any children to IOM[expand acronym] for assistance during the reporting period. It is unknown whether law enforcement or social service officials referred foreign victims directly to other organizations in 2007.
Organizations working to help trafficked children continued to lament South Africa’s shortage of social workers, a situation resulting in inadequate case monitoring and follow-up, and failure in some cases to accompany children to court. The government actively encouraged victims’ assistance in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers; South Africa’s witness protection program safeguarded at least seven Thai trafficking victims during the year to enable their involvement. The government provided these witnesses shelter and modest food stipends. Despite this positive development, the government continued to arrest and, at times, prosecute suspected trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked, as noted in the aforementioned case of the 27 Chinese women. In addition, extensive delays in scheduling court appearances have resulted in some alleged victims choosing not to testify during the trial of their traffickers. However, the new Sexual Offenses Act states that sex trafficking victims are not liable to stand trial for any criminal offense, including any migration-related offense, which was committed as a direct result of being trafficked. No similar provision exists for victims of labor trafficking. The lack of national coordination and procedures for victim protection continued to lead to deportation of most foreign victims before they were provided protective services or were able to give evidence in court. Immigration officials did not attempt to identify trafficking victims among the thousands of undocumented foreigners they detained—notably Zimbabweans and Mozambicans—before deporting them.
The governments should make progress in investigating the cross-border trafficking of Mozambican, Malawian, and Zimbabwean children for agricultural labor. In January 2008, however, the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Zimbabwean government to conduct a joint project to regularize the status of illegal Zimbabwean migrant farm workers in South Africa’s Limpopo Province and ensure them proper employment conditions. The government did not undertake efforts to reduce domestic demand for commercial sex acts or to combat child sex tourism during the reporting period. All South African troops destined for peacekeeping missions abroad are provided training on sexual exploitation issues prior to their deployment.
Uganda in particular
Implementing a comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation; increase efforts to prosecute, convict, and punish trafficking offenders; institute a unified system of documenting and collecting data on human trafficking cases for use by law enforcement, labor, and social welfare officials; investigate and punish labor recruiters responsible for knowingly sending Ugandans into forced labor abroad; launch a nationwide anti-trafficking public awareness campaign with a particular focus on forced labor; and establish policies and procedures for government officials to proactively identify and interview potential trafficking victims and transfer them to the care, when appropriate, of local organizations.
Prosecution
The Government of Uganda’s overall anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts improved in 2009, from no reported prosecutions or convictions in 2008 to three prosecutions and one conviction in 2009. The Ugandan Police Force’s (UPF) Child and Family Protection Unit (CFPU) investigated a number of suspected trafficking cases during the reporting period, but courts failed to move pending cases through the judicial process. The investigations reported in the 2009 Report did not result in active prosecutions during the year. Neither the police nor the Department of Public Prosecution maintained records of investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of trafficking offenses, and could not provide comprehensive statistics or information on particular cases. In October 2009, the President signed the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008 and it was published in the official gazette. The penal code was not, however, updated to reflect the new law and the Attorney General did not formally notify the police – steps that are required to bring new legislation into effect. The act prescribes punishment of 15 years’ to life imprisonment, penalties which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes. Because the law is not yet in effect, suspected trafficking offenses continued to be charged under other statutes during the year, such as prohibitions on procurement for prostitution, defilement, and kidnapping. For example, in February 2009, a Kampala court sentenced a Ugandan woman to four years’ imprisonment for abducting three girls to serve as domestic servants in southern Sudan. In March 2009, a Mbale court issued an indictment against two Ugandan women on charges of kidnapping for alleged abduction of four children and taking them to Kenya for forced labor. The UPF incorporated a one-day trafficking first responder course into the basic training program at the police academy. By April 2009, the CFPU had provided this training to 150 officers.
Protection
The government sustained its moderate levels of protection for child victims during the reporting period. The government has not developed or implemented procedures for the systematic identification of victims among high risk groups; as a result, potential victims are sometimes prosecuted for immigration or prostitution violations. Lacking resources to provide sufficient direct assistance, it typically referred those victims it did identify to NGOs on an ad hoc basis. During the year, the UPF identified and referred 12 child trafficking victims to a local NGO’s shelter in Kampala. Its memorandum of understanding with the same NGO continued to allow for the presence of the NGO’s social workers in three police stations to assist trafficking victims with legal, medical, psychological, and family tracing services. The UPF worked in partnership with Kenyan authorities to repatriate four child victims to Uganda. The Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Development (MGLSD) continued to remove Karamojong children in possible trafficking situations from Kampala’s streets and transferred 300 of them to two MGLSD-operated shelters in Karamoja that provided food, medical treatment, counseling, and family tracing. The ministry also operated a facility in Kampala for the initial intake of street children. There were, however, no similar government-funded or operated facilities or services for adult trafficking victims. In 2009, the Ugandan military’s Child Protection Unit in Gulu received and processed 66 children returning from LRA captivity before transporting them to NGO-run rehabilitation centers for longer-term care. The government provided each child with basic nonfood items for resettlement.
In mid-2009, the government issued travel documents for the repatriation of 14 Ugandan women from Iraq in partnership with IOM and the Governments of Iraq and the United States. The Special Task Force for the Elimination of Human Sacrifice and Trafficking, a 15-member inter-ministerial committee headed by the Deputy Police Commissioner, assisted with the repatriation of three Ugandan girls from a separate case in Iraq. Current Ugandan law does not provide assistance to foreign trafficking victims and immigration officials are required to deport individuals in violation of the immigration code without regard to their status as trafficking victims. In 2009, however, the Ministry of Internal Affairs allowed Pakistani victims, on a case-by- case basis, to remain in Uganda to assist with an investigation. Once in effect, the new anti-trafficking law will remedy many of the current legal limitations regarding the protection of foreign victims. The government reports that it has a policy of encouraging trafficking victims to testify against their exploiters, though no victims chose to do so during the last year.
Prevention
The Ugandan government sustained its efforts to prevent human trafficking through increased public awareness efforts during the year. In January 2010, the task force began compiling a comprehensive report on human trafficking for release in mid-2010. In the same month, it directed district security committees to form task force teams under their respective police commanders to improve local efforts to combat trafficking; teams have been established in some parts of the country. The police operated a specific hotline for reporting trafficking cases, but failed to keep records of calls, if any, received. Following the repatriation of trafficked Ugandan domestic workers from Iraq, the External Labor Unit of the MGLSD revoked the license of the employment agency that fraudulently recruited them and, in August 2009, officially suspended the sending of domestic workers to Middle Eastern countries. Local governments convened child labor committees, enforced local bylaws against child labor, monitored the working conditions of children, and counseled parents whose children were not in school. The MGLSD’s labor inspectors conducted no investigations of exploitative or forced child labor in 2009 and reported no open cases involving such crimes. The small number of inspectors and limited resources precluded inspections in the rural areas or the informal sector. During the year, police investigated hundreds of reports of human sacrifice, many involving forced removal of body parts, and confirmed the validity of 29 cases, 15 of which involved the victimization of children; it did not transfer any of these cases to courts for prosecution. In November 2009, the task force and a local NGO launched a campaign against the forced removal of body parts for human sacrifices in both Kampala and Kamuli District, and hosted a public dialogue on the issue that was covered by local media. Government officials also participated in a solidarity march to protest increased incidents of child sacrifices. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor or sex acts. The government provided anti-trafficking training to
Major reasons for the vice
"While trafficking into forced sex work gets most of the attention at the international level, these stories show that women and girls are trafficked into all kinds of forced labour," says Seri Wendoh, the International Planned Parenthood Federation's (IPPF) senior technical officer on sexual rights and gender.
Men are trafficked for construction work, too, but this tends to be talked about simply as "migrant work", ignoring that many end up being paid very little or nothing,
Demand for cheap labour in the destination countries is a major driving force, but she believes a lack of employment in Nepal and political instability since the end of the civil war seven years ago are equally responsible. Low levels of education and awareness of the issue also play a role.
Women and children are most at risk: the Demographic and Health Survey for 2011 (pdf) found that only a third of women aged 20-24 had been to secondary school, and only half of those had completed their studies. Almost a quarter of girls in that age group had received no education.
In a country where travelling abroad to find employment opportunities is far from unusual – more than 100,000 women are thought to go to India every year as non-trafficked migrant workers – it is unsurprising that women are duped, especially if those offering the supposed jobs are people they know.
"Women living in an environment of restricted rights, limited personal freedom and few employment opportunities may decide migration is their only hope for achieving economic independence and a higher standard of living," Rana says.
Strategies to curb the vice
Government protection for trafficking victims during the reporting period remained inadequate, and formal protocols to identify and care for trafficking victims were lacking. Police referred an unknown number of internal child trafficking victims to local NGO-run shelters during the reporting period. As part of its ongoing program to assist organizations that shelter vulnerable populations, the government granted funding to some facilities that provided housing for trafficking victims, though not in a consistent or timely fashion. In 2007, the Department of Home Affairs referred one foreign child victim of trafficking to IOM for assistance. The Department of Social Development (DSD) provided the victim with shelter accommodation, schooling, and basic needs. However, DSD did not refer any children to IOM[expand acronym] for assistance during the reporting period. It is unknown whether law enforcement or social service officials referred foreign victims directly to other organizations in 2007.
Organizations working to help trafficked children continued to lament South Africa’s shortage of social workers, a situation resulting in inadequate case monitoring and follow-up, and failure in some cases to accompany children to court. The government actively encouraged victims’ assistance in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers; South Africa’s witness protection program safeguarded at least seven Thai trafficking victims during the year to enable their involvement. The government provided these witnesses shelter and modest food stipends. Despite this positive development, the government continued to arrest and, at times, prosecute suspected trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of their being trafficked, as noted in the aforementioned case of the 27 Chinese women. In addition, extensive delays in scheduling court appearances have resulted in some alleged victims choosing not to testify during the trial of their traffickers. However, the new Sexual Offenses Act states that sex trafficking victims are not liable to stand trial for any criminal offense, including any migration-related offense, which was committed as a direct result of being trafficked. No similar provision exists for victims of labor trafficking. The lack of national coordination and procedures for victim protection continued to lead to deportation of most foreign victims before they were provided protective services or were able to give evidence in court. Immigration officials did not attempt to identify trafficking victims among the thousands of undocumented foreigners they detained—notably Zimbabweans and Mozambicans—before deporting them.
Prevention
The governments must demonstrate anxiety in combating human trafficking through prevention efforts. It conducted no anti-trafficking information or education campaigns during the reporting period. The Sexual Offenses and Community Affairs Unit of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA/SOCA) serves as the de facto lead of the government’s anti-trafficking effort and chairs the Trafficking in Persons Inter-sectoral Task Team made up of government departments, IOM, UNODC,[expand acronym] and a local NGO. The Task Team produced no significant outcomes in 2007. In January 2008, NPA/SOCA established an internal Human Trafficking Unit consisting of a national trafficking coordinator and a program manager. This Unit is tasked with reviving the Inter-sectoral Task Team and undertaking data gathering and public awareness raising activities, as outlined in the government’s 2006 anti-trafficking plan of action. NPA/SOCA launched a website in December 2007 outlining its proposed strategy for responding to human trafficking. The website also provides the public with information on the nature of human trafficking and instructions for reporting a case or obtaining victim assistance.The governments should make progress in investigating the cross-border trafficking of Mozambican, Malawian, and Zimbabwean children for agricultural labor. In January 2008, however, the government signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Zimbabwean government to conduct a joint project to regularize the status of illegal Zimbabwean migrant farm workers in South Africa’s Limpopo Province and ensure them proper employment conditions. The government did not undertake efforts to reduce domestic demand for commercial sex acts or to combat child sex tourism during the reporting period. All South African troops destined for peacekeeping missions abroad are provided training on sexual exploitation issues prior to their deployment.
Uganda in particular
Implementing a comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation; increase efforts to prosecute, convict, and punish trafficking offenders; institute a unified system of documenting and collecting data on human trafficking cases for use by law enforcement, labor, and social welfare officials; investigate and punish labor recruiters responsible for knowingly sending Ugandans into forced labor abroad; launch a nationwide anti-trafficking public awareness campaign with a particular focus on forced labor; and establish policies and procedures for government officials to proactively identify and interview potential trafficking victims and transfer them to the care, when appropriate, of local organizations.
Prosecution
The Government of Uganda’s overall anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts improved in 2009, from no reported prosecutions or convictions in 2008 to three prosecutions and one conviction in 2009. The Ugandan Police Force’s (UPF) Child and Family Protection Unit (CFPU) investigated a number of suspected trafficking cases during the reporting period, but courts failed to move pending cases through the judicial process. The investigations reported in the 2009 Report did not result in active prosecutions during the year. Neither the police nor the Department of Public Prosecution maintained records of investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of trafficking offenses, and could not provide comprehensive statistics or information on particular cases. In October 2009, the President signed the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act of 2008 and it was published in the official gazette. The penal code was not, however, updated to reflect the new law and the Attorney General did not formally notify the police – steps that are required to bring new legislation into effect. The act prescribes punishment of 15 years’ to life imprisonment, penalties which are sufficiently stringent and commensurate with those prescribed for other serious crimes. Because the law is not yet in effect, suspected trafficking offenses continued to be charged under other statutes during the year, such as prohibitions on procurement for prostitution, defilement, and kidnapping. For example, in February 2009, a Kampala court sentenced a Ugandan woman to four years’ imprisonment for abducting three girls to serve as domestic servants in southern Sudan. In March 2009, a Mbale court issued an indictment against two Ugandan women on charges of kidnapping for alleged abduction of four children and taking them to Kenya for forced labor. The UPF incorporated a one-day trafficking first responder course into the basic training program at the police academy. By April 2009, the CFPU had provided this training to 150 officers.
Protection
The government sustained its moderate levels of protection for child victims during the reporting period. The government has not developed or implemented procedures for the systematic identification of victims among high risk groups; as a result, potential victims are sometimes prosecuted for immigration or prostitution violations. Lacking resources to provide sufficient direct assistance, it typically referred those victims it did identify to NGOs on an ad hoc basis. During the year, the UPF identified and referred 12 child trafficking victims to a local NGO’s shelter in Kampala. Its memorandum of understanding with the same NGO continued to allow for the presence of the NGO’s social workers in three police stations to assist trafficking victims with legal, medical, psychological, and family tracing services. The UPF worked in partnership with Kenyan authorities to repatriate four child victims to Uganda. The Ministry of Gender, Labor, and Social Development (MGLSD) continued to remove Karamojong children in possible trafficking situations from Kampala’s streets and transferred 300 of them to two MGLSD-operated shelters in Karamoja that provided food, medical treatment, counseling, and family tracing. The ministry also operated a facility in Kampala for the initial intake of street children. There were, however, no similar government-funded or operated facilities or services for adult trafficking victims. In 2009, the Ugandan military’s Child Protection Unit in Gulu received and processed 66 children returning from LRA captivity before transporting them to NGO-run rehabilitation centers for longer-term care. The government provided each child with basic nonfood items for resettlement.
In mid-2009, the government issued travel documents for the repatriation of 14 Ugandan women from Iraq in partnership with IOM and the Governments of Iraq and the United States. The Special Task Force for the Elimination of Human Sacrifice and Trafficking, a 15-member inter-ministerial committee headed by the Deputy Police Commissioner, assisted with the repatriation of three Ugandan girls from a separate case in Iraq. Current Ugandan law does not provide assistance to foreign trafficking victims and immigration officials are required to deport individuals in violation of the immigration code without regard to their status as trafficking victims. In 2009, however, the Ministry of Internal Affairs allowed Pakistani victims, on a case-by- case basis, to remain in Uganda to assist with an investigation. Once in effect, the new anti-trafficking law will remedy many of the current legal limitations regarding the protection of foreign victims. The government reports that it has a policy of encouraging trafficking victims to testify against their exploiters, though no victims chose to do so during the last year.
Prevention
The Ugandan government sustained its efforts to prevent human trafficking through increased public awareness efforts during the year. In January 2010, the task force began compiling a comprehensive report on human trafficking for release in mid-2010. In the same month, it directed district security committees to form task force teams under their respective police commanders to improve local efforts to combat trafficking; teams have been established in some parts of the country. The police operated a specific hotline for reporting trafficking cases, but failed to keep records of calls, if any, received. Following the repatriation of trafficked Ugandan domestic workers from Iraq, the External Labor Unit of the MGLSD revoked the license of the employment agency that fraudulently recruited them and, in August 2009, officially suspended the sending of domestic workers to Middle Eastern countries. Local governments convened child labor committees, enforced local bylaws against child labor, monitored the working conditions of children, and counseled parents whose children were not in school. The MGLSD’s labor inspectors conducted no investigations of exploitative or forced child labor in 2009 and reported no open cases involving such crimes. The small number of inspectors and limited resources precluded inspections in the rural areas or the informal sector. During the year, police investigated hundreds of reports of human sacrifice, many involving forced removal of body parts, and confirmed the validity of 29 cases, 15 of which involved the victimization of children; it did not transfer any of these cases to courts for prosecution. In November 2009, the task force and a local NGO launched a campaign against the forced removal of body parts for human sacrifices in both Kampala and Kamuli District, and hosted a public dialogue on the issue that was covered by local media. Government officials also participated in a solidarity march to protest increased incidents of child sacrifices. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor or sex acts. The government provided anti-trafficking training to
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