Human Trafficking in [Benin Street Children in [Benin] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Benin] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic of Benin [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Republic of Benin [map]
is a West African country bordered by Togo (W), Burkina Faso and Niger (N);
Nigeria (E); and by the Bight of Benin (an arm of the Gulf of Guinea) in the
south. Benin is a source, transit and, to
a lesser extent, a destination country for children trafficked for the
purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. A 2006 UNICEF
study found that 93 percent of victims were Beninese and 92 percent were
trafficked within the country. Of those trafficked internally, 86 percent
were underage girls. Within the country, girls are trafficked primarily for
domestic servitude and sexual exploitation, while boys are subjected to
plantation and construction labor, street hawking, and handicraft activities.
There is anecdotal evidence that child sex tourism may be developing in
northern Benin. Children are trafficked from Benin to other African countries
for the aforementioned purposes as well as for forced labor in mines and
stone quarries. The majority of victims trafficked transnationally from Benin
are taken to Nigeria and Gabon, though some are also trafficked to Cameroon,
Togo, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana, Congo, and Guinea- Bissau. A small number of
children are trafficked to Benin from other African countries, primarily
Togo, Niger, and Burkina Faso. - 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 ARTICLES *** Scale of African slavery
revealed COMPLICITY - Much of this trade in children
often has the tacit collaboration of the victims' own families where it is
seen not so much as criminal activity but as a way for a large family to
boost its poor income. The story of Joseph in Benin is
fairly typical. When he was 13 years
old, a stranger arranged with his parents for him to go to neighbouring Togo
for a better life. However, he was put
to work from 0500 to 2300 each day as a domestic help and was regularly
beaten. It took him three years of
saving money to be able to phone home and be rescued by an uncle. Now 16
years old, he is back in school.
"I was so happy to see my little brother again when I returned
home to Benin," he says. African
"slave ship" highlights spread of child slavery Although there may be a
superficial resemblance to the African slave trade of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the driving forces behind this modern form of slavery
are entirely new. The roots of today's slave trade are to be discovered in
the way that capitalism has developed in Africa during the last few decades. The conditions of extreme poverty
in Sub-Saharan Africa have attracted transnational corporations (TNCs), which
can profit from Africa's rich mineral resources and other primary products by
exploiting the plentiful cheap labour needed to produce and process them. The
TNCs are able to sell these products in Europe and America for many times
more than they cost to produce. ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
traditional practice of vidomegon, in which poor, often rural, families
placed a child in the home of a more wealthy family to avoid the burden the
child represented to the parental family, increasingly involved abuse. While
originally a voluntary arrangement between two families, the child often
faced forced labor, long hours, inadequate food, and sexual exploitation.
Approximately 90 to 95 percent of the children in vidomegon were young girls.
Children were sent from poorer families to Cotonou and then sometimes on to
Gabon, Cote d'Ivoire, and the Central African Republic to help in markets and
around the home. The child received living accommodations, while the child's
parents and the urban family that raised the child split the income generated
from the child's activities. Children were trafficked to According to a 2000 UNICEF study,
four distinct forms of trafficking occurred in the country. "Trafic‑don"
was when children were given to a migrant family member or stranger, who
turned them over to another stranger for vocational training or education.
"Trafic‑gage" was a form of indentured servitude, in which a
debt was incurred to transport the child, who was not allowed to return home
until the debt was repaid. "Trafic‑ouvrier" involved children
of ages 6 years to 12 years, who worked as artisans, construction laborers,
or agricultural or domestic workers. This was the most common variant,
estimated to be 75 percent of the total traffic of the three provinces UNICEF
surveyed in 2000. Finally, "trafic‑vente" was the outright
sale of children. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2006 [DOC] [71] While welcoming the ongoing efforts by the State
party to combat child trafficking, including the new Law on the Suppression
of Trafficking in Children, the National Policy and Strategy on Child
Protection, and the National Study on Child Trafficking, the Committee is
concerned at the information that a high number of children under 18,
especially adolescent girls, are still being trafficked for the purpose of
sexual exploitation and domestic labour in other countries. [67] The Committee is deeply concerned at the
prevalence of child labour among young children under the age of 14, at the
traditional practice of domestic servants or vidomégons, and at the increased
number of children working in the informal sector. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 1999 [33] 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. In
the light of article 35 and other related articles of the Convention, the Committee
recommends that the State party review its legal framework and strengthen law
enforcement, and intensify its efforts to raise awareness in communities, in
particular in rural areas. Cooperation with neighboring countries through
bilateral agreements to prevent cross-border trafficking is strongly
encouraged Report
by Special Rapporteur - 2003 [28] Action to combat trafficking has
been mobilized since the well-publicized case in April 2001 of the
Etireno, a Nigerian-registered ship thought to be carrying some
200 children from The
Protection Project - Benin FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Benin, along with Togo, has one
of the greatest problems with child trafficking of all the countries in West
and Central Africa. Child labor and sexual
exploitation are the predominant forms of trafficking. For example, children
are trafficked from Benin to Gabon for domestic servitude. Also, many children who are trafficked from
Benin to other neighboring West African countries are forced to work in
agricultural plantations and mines.
Children are trafficked from Benin to Côte d’Ivoire to work on
plantations, as servants, or on the streets in prostitution. In September 2003, a total of 116
Beninese boys between 5 and 17 years old were repatriated from Nigeria, and an additional 74 children were
repatriated in October 2003. These
children had been sold into bonded labor to work in about seven granite
quarries in Ogun, Osun, and Oyo states in southwestern Nigeria. They had been exploited for months or in
some cases years. According to the children repatriated in October, at least
13 other victims died in the 3 months before their rescue. Authorities of Benin and Nigeria also
believe that up to 15,000 more children from Benin could be exploited in
similar conditions in southwestern Nigeria, and they have launched a third
rescue mission. A tradition involving the use of
female slaves, known as trokosi or “wives of the deity,” is a modern-day form
of slavery that originated in the Ewe and Dangme peoples in south and east
Ghana, and also in Togo and Benin. Under this tradition, young virgins are
brought to a shrine to compensate for a crime or transgression committed by
their families, perhaps even generations earlier. The girls live as slaves to
the priest. If a girl dies, the family sends a new one to replace her. The
trokosi work in the household, clean the shrine, and are used as sex slaves. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 2 Status: Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide Scale of African
slavery revealed COMPLICITY - Much of this trade in children
often has the tacit collaboration of the victims' own families where it is
seen not so much as criminal activity but as a way for a large family to
boost its poor income. The story of Joseph in Benin is
fairly typical. When he was 13 years
old, a stranger arranged with his parents for him to go to neighbouring Togo
for a better life. However, he was put
to work from 0500 to 2300 each day as a domestic help and was regularly
beaten. It took him three years of
saving money to be able to phone home and be rescued by an uncle. Now 16
years old, he is back in school.
"I was so happy to see my little brother again when I returned
home to Benin," he says. 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. 74
additional trafficked children repatriated from Nigeria to Benin Another group of 74 trafficked
children, between the ages of 4 and 17 years old, was
repatriated to Benin on Wednesday, 15 October. Like the first
group of 116 children who were repatriated on 26 September, these
children worked in Nigerian quarries in Abeokuta. This is the second repatriation in
2 weeks of Beninese trafficked children coming from Nigeria. On 26 September,
116 children were handed over at the border under the same
conditions. According to Nigerian sources,
there might be thousands of Beninese children exploited in Nigeria. In The
Northwest: Bully for those combating worldwide slave trade Nigeria (Tier 2) has just rescued
74 child workers -- as young as age 4 -- who were kidnapped from their native
Benin and forced to work in granite pits. Thirteen children in the group had
reportedly died. Human trafficking remains huge --
about 6,000 children remain at work in Nigeria's granite pits. Traffickers
hold thousands of children, women in bondage Silinu Sogbonsi was five years old
when unknown men seized him as he walked home from school in Selinu, a little
town in the southeast of Benin, near the Nigerian border. Blindfolded, he was
pushed him into a waiting car which sped away. For several days, Sogbonsi was hustled
along by his captors on motorbikes through bush paths and on buses along
highways. Finally he arrived in a
little village he was to identify as Alamutu, near Abeokuta city in southwest
Nigeria. Here Sogbonsi joined other children, aged five to 15 on a daily
routine to dig up granite for their masters from the stone quarries that
litter the area. The children, who
earned 50 naira (US $0.38) a week, each worked 12-16 hours, crushing enough
gravel to generate 35,000 naira ($269). Every evening a lorry delivered the
gravel to construction sites in Nigeria's southwest region. LABOUR:
Nigeria, Benin Join Forces to Fight Child Trafficking The children, all males and
malnourished, were part of the inmates of about seven child-slave camps
discovered in the western Nigerian States of Ogun, Oyo and Osun, in a major
breakthrough by security operatives fighting cross-border crimes, especially
child trafficking and forced child labour. Ship
Discovered With Human Cargo 250 children have been discovered
aboard a ship in the Gabonese port. The children who were allegedly sold to
human traffickers by their parents or guardians were taken to Gabon where
they were to be resold into child labour or slavery of all kinds. According to Zardzo, the children
aboard the ship are between the ages of 9,10,and 11, who are able to help
government in the relocation of their parents or guardians. These children are said to have hailed from
the two West African countries of Togo and Benin. African
"slave ship" highlights spread of child slavery Although there may be a
superficial resemblance to the African slave trade of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries, the driving forces behind this modern form of slavery
are entirely new. The roots of today's slave trade are to be discovered in
the way that capitalism has developed in Africa during the last few decades. The conditions of extreme poverty
in Sub-Saharan Africa have attracted transnational corporations (TNCs), which
can profit from Africa's rich mineral resources and other primary products by
exploiting the plentiful cheap labour needed to produce and process them. The
TNCs are able to sell these products in Europe and America for many times
more than they cost to produce. Rogue Voyage of a
21st Century African Slave Ship On April 17, the Etireno limped
back into Cotonou. Upon examining the ship, local authorities said it was
"uncertain" if slaves had been aboard. Realists wondered if an even greater
evil had occurred, with the human evidence drowned at sea. Modern
Slavery - Human bondage in Africa, Asia, and the Dominican Republic SLAVE TRADING ON AFRICA'S WEST
COAST - The slave
trade in Africa was officially banned in the early 1880s, but forced labor
continues to be practiced in West and Central Africa today. UNICEF estimates
that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year. Many
of these children are from Benin and
Togo, and are sold into the domestic, agricultural, and sex industries of
wealthier, neighboring countries such as Nigeria and Gabon. SLAVE CHILDREN - The New York Times on August
10, 1997 reported that the slave trade in children seems to be increasing in
Central Africa, as well-dressed traders travel to poor rural areas in Benin
and offer parents money, from $20 to $40, in exchange for their children, promising
that the ones they take away will end up rich and successful. 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 [Benin Street Children in [Benin] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Benin] [other countries]