Human Trafficking in [Cameroon Street Children in [Cameroon] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cameroon] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the first ten years of the 21st
Century - 2000 to 2009
Cameroon is a source, transit, and
destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced
labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Most victims are children
trafficked within the country, with girls primarily trafficked for domestic
servitude and sexual exploitation. Both boys and girls are also trafficked
within Cameroon for forced labor in sweatshops, bars, restaurants, on tea and
cocoa plantations, in mines, and for street vending and possibly for forced
begging. Reports indicate that traditional
religious leaders may subject individuals to hereditary slavery practices
rooted in ancestral master-slave relationships in some northern chiefdoms. - 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 ARTICLE *** Beatings, Isolation and Fear: The Life of a Slave in the U.S. Evelyn Chumbow
was once a slave, but not in some distant country. She worked right here in
the United States. Chumbow, now 21, was
brought to suburban Maryland in 1996 from her native Cameroon by Theresa Mubang. Mubang promised Chumbow's
family that if 11-year-old Evelyn came to America, she would have the
prospect of a bright future and a first-rate education, as she had been a top
student in her native country.
Instead, after she arrived, Mubang enslaved
the child in her home, forcing her to work long hours and depriving her of
the education she was promised, and never paid her a dime. ***
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 – Women
and children traditionally have faced the greatest risk of trafficking and
have been trafficked most often for the purposes of sexual exploitation and
forced labor. Most trafficking in children occurred within the country's
borders, while most trafficked women were transported out of the country.
According to anecdotal evidence by the NCHRF, women often were
"hired" into hubs of prostitution, often in A 2000 ILO study conducted in SECTION 6
WORKER RIGHTS – [c]
The ILO confirmed that there was an increase during the year in serious
trafficking issues, and slavery situations have been identified in the Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2001 [60] The Committee is deeply
concerned at the large number of children being sold by their parents and
subsequently exploited in the labor market. The Committee is also concerned
at information on alleged instances of trafficking in children for their
exploitation in the State party and in neighboring countries. The Committee
is further concerned at the possible use of inter-country adoption for the
purpose of trafficking. Human
trafficking: The faces and sorrow at the heart of a UN report www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29907&Cr=&Cr1= Rose was just a teenager in
Cameroon when she was promised a chance to go to school in the United States.
What she got was – slavery, working 15 hours a day for years, paid nothing,
and beaten. Rose finally opened the door in
suburban Washington, D.C., and ran shoelesss
although it was October and bitterly cold. She called the number of a
Cameroonian man who visited her slave owner’s house occasionally and seemed
concerned about her. He picked her up hours later. Another Cameroonian took
her into his home and she was eventually reunited with other young
Cameroonian girls who had been enslaved. Beatings, Isolation and Fear: The Life of a Slave in the U.S. Evelyn Chumbow
was once a slave, but not in some distant country. She worked right here in
the United States. Chumbow, now 21, was brought
to suburban Maryland in 1996 from her native Cameroon by Theresa Mubang. Mubang promised Chumbow's
family that if 11-year-old Evelyn came to America, she would have the
prospect of a bright future and a first-rate education, as she had been a top
student in her native country.
Instead, after she arrived, Mubang enslaved
the child in her home, forcing her to work long hours and depriving her of
the education she was promised, and never paid her a dime. Trafficking
of African women is thriving In January Italian police smashed
several human trafficking rings involving African and eastern European
females and netted some 800 suspects. Outside Nigeria, other main
sources of females for prostitution were the west Africa states of Cameroon, Ghana, Sierra Leone and
Togo. She said young girls were lured
with fraudulent offers of jobs in Europe, only to end up being violently
forced into prostitution. Couple
Indicted On Human Trafficking Charges According to the three count
indictment, Joseph Djoumessi and Evelyn Djoumessi violated federal law by fraudulently bringing a
14 year old Cameroonian girl into the "Too often human traffickers
bait young girls with promises of the American dream only to then force them
into involuntary servitude. Civilized society cannot tolerate this,"
said R. Alexander Acosta, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights
Division. "The Justice Department takes these charges very seriously and
is committed to prosecuting those who attempt to profit by the systematic
abuse and degradation of others." She forced the girl to cook, clean
and take care of her young children for no pay, beginning when the girl was
only 11, and she beat the girl. Her
attorney claimed that her actions were in keeping with the cultural norms of
her native The
Protection Project - Cameroon [DOC] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - According to a report by the
International Labor Organization (ILO), thousands of Cameroonian children fall
victim to trafficking every year.
Children are exploited as laborers on plantations and cocoa farms and also as workers in small shops, bars,
and households. It is common for a
middle-class family in Cameroon to have one or several children working for
them in exchange for a very modest wage and minimal education. The practice of child labor in households
and fields is a tradition that sometimes masks trafficking. In rural areas,
children as young as 4 are expected to work.
A recent survey sampled children and employers in Yaounde,
in Limbe, and in Mbangasina,
a region with large cocoa farms. The survey revealed that children from Chad,
the Central African Republic, and Nigeria were paid as little as 3,000 CFA
francs per month to perform chores sometimes lasting 18 hours a day. The
children suffered from malnourishment and sexual abuse. A common tradition in Cameroon is
the practice of placement. The practice provides a means for poor families to
educate their children. Under its original form, poor family members would
send their children to live with wealthy family members or with other
families who lived in a city. The children were expected to provide various
services to the foster family in exchange for an education, vocational
training, or money sent back to the family of origin. Gradually, traffickers
began to exploit this intrafamily help system.
Exploitation can range from withholding pay and refusing or failing to
educate the child to abusing the child physically, sexually, and mentally. Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 6 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide IYF
and Nokia Recognize 11 Outstanding Youth Leaders with YouthActionNet
Awards In many cases, award winners plan
to use the funding they receive to strengthen and expand their efforts. In
Cameroon, Ernest Mbandi will use the award to
sponsor a forum that will bring together 150 youth and victims of child
trafficking to discuss means of addressing child slavery. Project: Campaigning for Change Age: 28 Short Bio: Combating child slavery in
Cameroon Long Bio: Local customs surrounding child slavery
and limited youth rights legislation are just some of the obstacles Ernest Mbandi faces as founder of the Anti Child Slavery Network
(ACSN). Its mission: to combat and campaign against all forms of child
slavery. The Network encourages parents to consider education as a viable
alternative to child labor and provides advice, training, and support to
exploited children. It also helps children forced into bondage to draft
testimonies to be used against their traffickers. ACSN researches existing
cases of child exploitation and slavery and a team of young campaigners uses
the evidence to publicize their plight. ACSN has helped free 753 young people
from various forms of slavery and exploitation and there are now 50 ACSN
clubs in Cameroon with more than 1,000 members. Testimony of Professor Mohamed Mattar
Co-Director, Protection Project Johns Hopkins University judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1255&wit_id=3643 At one time this article had been
archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
Based upon the analysis conducted
by The Protection Project on these cases, which the Department of Justice
kindly made available, I can say that the majority of victims that are
trafficked into the U.S. come from countries in Africa, especially Cameroon, Nigeria, Ghana and Tonga;
Latin America, especially Jamaica, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala; Asia,
especially South Korea, Indonesia, Uzbekistan, Vietnam, Thailand and China
and Russia. They are trafficked for the
purposes of prostitution, other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor
and domestic service. The most recent survey of
conditions on West African cocoa farms, completed by the International
Institute for Tropical Agriculture for the U.S. Agency for International
Development, estimated that nearly 300,000 children work in dangerous
conditions on cocoa farms in the four countries surveyed -- Ivory Coast,
Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon -- the vast majority of them in the Ivory Coast.
The report, released in July 2002, says that of the 300,000 children, more
than half (64 percent) are under 14 years old. Twelve thousand had no
connection to the family on whose cocoa farm they toiled, but only 5,100 of
them were paid for their work. Almost 6,000 were described as "unpaid
workers with no family ties," provoking advocates to refer to them as
"slaves." Regional
efforts against Child Labour The states involved were also
classified. A supplier state is the victim's state of origin while the final
destination is a receiver state. Victims can transit through states to reach
a final destination. In West Africa, Cote d'Ivoire is a receiver state for
Malian and Burkinabe children. In Central Africa, Cameroon is a transit state for
Togolese, Nigerian and Benin's e children heading to Gabon which is
considered an "Eldorado" because of its
relative prosperity due to the oil industry. A thriving trade in human traffic
has developed in many parts of Africa mainly because of the grinding poverty
in which many Africans live. Oftentimes, slave traffickers fool parents into
selling their children, telling them that they are being sent away to get a
good education. In the end, these children are sold across Africa and as far
away as Europe. The countries from which children are smuggled include Benin,
Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Gabon,
Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mali, and Nigeria. African
"slave ship" highlights spread of child slavery There is also a thin layer of
elite Africans who acquire unpaid servants to work in their houses. Countries
in the front line of this trade include Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Gabon,
Nigeria and Togo. Traders say girls from Benin and Togo are particularly in
demand by wealthy families in Lagos, in Nigeria, and in Libreville, in Gabon.
Other children are taken from as far away as Banui
in the Central Africa Republic. Children from Banui
are said to be in high demand in Cameroon. 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 [Cameroon Street Children in [Cameroon] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cameroon] [other countries]