Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Poverty drives the unsuspecting poor into the
hands of traffickers Published reports & articles from
2000 to 2025 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Congo.htm
The Democratic
Republic of the Congo (DRC) is a source and destination country for men,
women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual
exploitation. Much of this trafficking occurs within the country’s unstable
eastern provinces and is perpetrated by armed groups outside government
control. Indigenous and foreign armed militia groups, notably, the Democratic
Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), the National Congress for the
Defense of the People (CNDP), various local militia (Mai-Mai), and the Lord’s
Resistance Army (LRA), continued to abduct and forcibly recruit Congolese
men, women, and children to serve as laborers, porters, domestics,
combatants, and in sexual servitude. CNDP recruiters, fraudulently promising
high-paying employment, enlisted Congolese men and boys from Rwanda-based
refugee camps, as well as Rwandan adults and children from towns in western
Rwanda, for forced labor and forced soldiering in the DRC. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 Check
out a later country report here or a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in the HOW TO USE THIS WEB-PAGE Students If you are looking
for material to use in a term-paper, you are advised to scan the postings on
this page and others to see which aspects of Human Trafficking are of
particular interest to you. Would you
like to write about Forced-Labor? Debt
Bondage? Prostitution? Forced Begging? Child Soldiers? Sale of Organs? etc. On the other
hand, you might choose to include precursors of trafficking such as poverty and hunger. There is a lot to
the subject of Trafficking. Scan other
countries as well. Draw comparisons
between activity in adjacent countries and/or regions. Meanwhile, check out some of the Term-Paper resources
that are available on-line. Teachers Check out some of
the Resources
for Teachers attached to this website. ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** The international
community must immediately address ongoing conflict, military occupation,
lawlessness, and impunity for ongoing acts of genocide and crimes against
humanity, including widespread sexual violence, in DRC Keith Harmon Snow, Survivors'
Rights International (SRI), Press Release: June 2, 2004 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4
September 2011] EQUATEUR PROVINCE: Eyewitnesses
reports from different parts of Equateur indicate both transient soldiers and
resident DRC government FAC (Forces Armee Congolaise) soldiers looting and
destroying property; confiscating and occupying homes and schools;
conscripting and brutalizing males for forced labor; raping women and girls;
and abducting women and girls for prolonged periods of sexual slavery. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Democratic Republic of the Congo DRC U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 [accessed 30 May
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR The government did
not effectively enforce the law. There were reports that forced labor,
including forced child labor, regularly occurred throughout the country.
Violations included bonded labor, domestic servitude, and slavery. In the
artisanal mining sector, individuals took on debt from intermediaries and
dealers to acquire food, supplies, and mining equipment, often at high
interest rates. Miners who failed to provide sufficient ore to pay their debt
were at risk of debt bondage. The government continued to try to formalize
the artisanal mining sector but did not attempt to regulate the practice. In
the east IAGs continued to abduct and forcibly recruit men, women, and
children to serve as laborers, porters, domestic laborers, and combatants
(see section 1.g.). In eastern mining regions, there were reports that armed
groups violently attacked mining communities and surrounding villages and
held men, women, and children captive for trafficking, including forced labor
and sexual exploitation. In North Kivu and South Kivu Provinces, some members
of FARDC units and IAGs taxed or, in some cases, controlled mining activities
in gold, coltan, wolframite, and cassiterite mines. There were no reports of FARDC units
forcing persons to work in mines. IAGs sometimes forced local communities to
perform construction work and other labor at mine sites. The government did
not effectively enforce laws banning this practice. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Child labor,
including forced child labor, was a problem throughout the country (see
section 7.b.). Child labor was most common in the informal sector, including
in artisanal mining and subsistence agriculture. According to the Ministry of
Labor, children worked in mines and stone quarries and as child soldiers,
water sellers, domestic workers, and entertainers in bars and restaurants.
The commercial sexual exploitation of children also occurred (see section 6).
Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/democratic-republic-congo/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 8 July
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Formal protections
against economic exploitation are poorly enforced, and most Congolese are
informally employed. Although the law prohibits all forced or compulsory
labor, such practices are common and include forced child labor in mining,
street vending, domestic service, and agriculture. Some government forces and
other armed groups force civilians to work for them, and the recruitment and
use of child soldiers remains widespread. 2017 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor Office of Child
Labor, Forced Labor, and Human Trafficking, Bureau of International Labor Affairs,
US Dept of Labor, 2018 www.dol.gov/sites/default/files/documents/ilab/ChildLaborReport_Book.pdf [accessed 17 April
2019] www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 26 April
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 306] In 2017, the Armed
Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) were removed from the
UN’s list of state armed forces that use child soldiers. (34) However, the UN
Mission for the Stabilization of the Democratic Republic of Congo (MONUSCO)
estimates that there are as many as 125 indigenous and foreign non-state
armed groups operating within the DRC. (33) Some of these armed
groups—including Forces Démocratiques de Libération du Rwanda (FDLR), Force de Résistance Patriotique en Ituri (FRPI), Kamuina Nsapu Mayi Mayi
groups, Nduma Défense du
Congo (NDC/Renove), Nyatura,
Raia Mutomboki, and other
armed groups—continued to abduct and recruit children for use in armed conflict.
(27; 29; 35; 31; 3) UNICEF and other
international organizations estimate that 40 percent to 70 percent of the
militias in central DRC include children, some as young as age 5. (27)
Research indicates that there was ongoing collaboration between members of
the FARDC and non-state armed groups known for recruiting children, including
coordinating operations or selling arms and munitions. (4; 36; 37; 38; 33;
39) Children may
sometimes join armed groups or engage in child labor in artisanal mines
hoping to earn money for school-related expenses. (2; 16; 17; 40; 27; 41; 42;
19) Although there is strong evidence of children engaged in armed conflict,
commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor in mining, there is a lack
of information on the overall nature of child labor because a comprehensive,
stand-alone, child labor survey has never been conducted in the DRC. (10). A Study on Human
Trafficking for Sexual Exploitation within th Gulf
of Guinea countries James Okolie-Osemene PhD, Department of International Relations
and the Director of Research and Linkage Programme,
Wellspring University, Nigeria [Long URL] [accessed 14
February 2022] The objectives of
this study are to situate and examine the context, nature and networks of
human trafficking for sexual exploitation around the Gulf of Guinea in order
to identify the intersection between the sources, transit and destinations of
the illicit trade, interrogate the human rights implications of human
trafficking for sexual exploitation around the countries of the Gulf of
Guinea on the one hand, and the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and
threats to the anti-trafficking activities on the other hand. Eastern Congo:
Kidnapped Boy Returns From Slavery World Food
Programme, Dungu, 18 March 2009 www.wfp.org/stories/kidnapped-boy-returns-from-slavery [accessed 30 January
2011] Dieudonné Nzatala
hugged the son he’d given up for dead and wept. Children taken by the LRA are
rarely seen again. If children do return, they are often mentally and
spiritually damaged. Many are forced to bear arms, rape, loot and kill. The
young girls usually come back pregnant. Dieudonné, his wife and their four
remaining children held an impromptu funeral for 17-year-old Dagumba. SEARCH FOR FRESH
RECRUITS
- On the morning of September 17 a group of LRA fighters flooded into Duru in
search of food, supplies and fresh recruits. “One hundred and eight children
were taken from Duru,” Dieudonné said. “Sixty from that one school
alone.” The students were forced to
walk north for two days, into the bush of Preventing the Use
of Child Soldiers: the Role of the International Criminal Court Shelly Whytman,
Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Botswana, Groupe de
recherche et d'information sur la paix et la sécurité GRIP, 18/05/2004 www.docin.com/p-438620489.html [accessed 18 July
2013] archive2.grip.org/bdg/g4536.htm [accessed 18 July
2013] [page 3] THE Child Soldier Use
2003: A Briefing for the 4th UN Security Council Open Debate on Children and
Armed Conflict: Coalition to Stop
the Use of Child Soldiers, January 2004 www.hrw.org/reports/2004/childsoldiers0104/6.htm [accessed 30 January
2011] GOVERNMENT FORCES - The Congolese Armed
Forces (FAC) continued to have children in their ranks despite commitments to
demobilization. Only 280 FAC child
soldiers had been released by August 2003, out of a total of 1,500 children
scheduled for demobilization from July 2001. According to Amnesty
International, the Congolese Government appeared not to be actively
recruiting child soldiers into the regular armed forces, but it provided
military support to armed groups such as Mai-Mai and the Rassamblement
congolais pour la d�mocratie-mouvement
de lib�ration (RCD-ML),
which continued to recruit child soldiers. From January 2003, the Mai-Mai,
most of whom are aligned to the government, continued to recruit and use
child soldiers. Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers (Coalition)
members in DRC detected heavy recruitment of children by the Mai-Mai between
March and August 2003 in Walungo, Mwenga, Shabunda, Fizi and Buyankiri, in
South-Kivu. Children at War At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 4
September 2011] "We were told
to kill people by forcing them to stay in their homes while we burned them
down," says 15-year-old Kalami, a six-year veteran serving in one of the
armed groups in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo. "One day, my
friends and I were forced by our commanders to kill a family, to cut up their
bodies... My life is lost. I have nothing to live for." From schoolboy to
soldier news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/3123794.stm [accessed 30 January
2011] I met Manja just
after he had walked in alone out of the rain. He carried nothing with him but
a sleeveless nylon jacket and his memories. "I heard that
there were other boys without parents who were living here," Manja says
in the high-pitched voice of a 12-year-old.
"I decided to leave the militia and join them. I left my gun
there. I told them I was suffering, but they said I had to stay, so I went
away secretly." He walked for
two days to reach the safety of this centre.
"I left in the evening, just before sunset. I came here all the
way on foot, but sometimes other civilians gave me a lift on a bicycle." "I was
farming," Manja told us. "One day I went away to the market. There
was fighting in my village that day, and everybody scattered. When I came
home there was no-one, everybody was gone." He joined a group of people heading south,
fleeing from their Lendu attackers.
He found himself utterly alone, without anyone willing, or able, to
help him. "I don't know where my
father and mother are," he said. "I had nothing to eat. I joined
the gunmen to get food. Sham demobilisation
hides rise in Rory Carroll, www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/09/congo.rorycarroll [accessed 30 January
2011] Armed groups in the
Democratic Republic of Congo have stepped up their recruitment of child
soldiers in expectation of the civil war continuing despite the peace accord,
Amnesty International says. Boys and
girls as young as eight are being mobilised in their thousands to murder and
plunder -undermining the hope that after five years the conflict is winding
down, its report, Children at War, says. The Use of Child
Soldiers in the Democratic Human Rights Watch At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 4 September
2011] President Kabila of
the Democratic Republic of Congo has used child soldiers to support his
military since 1996. As the rebel leader of the Alliance of Democratic Forces
for the Liberation of Congo (ADFL), he recruited thousands of young child
soldiers, known as "Kadogo," or "the little ones," to
support his military campaign against the Mobutu government. Despite pledges
from the Congolese government to demobilize children from the FAC since the
end of the 1996-1997 war and the establishment of several fledgling
demobilization programs, the Kabila government has continued to recruit
children as young as seven years old for military service. While no reliable
statistics were available regarding the number of child soldiers, the total
number is likely to be at least several thousand. Amnesty
International Labels Recruitment of Child Soldiers War Crime, Says
Demobilization Efforts Ineffective in DRC Ryan M. Taylor, U.S.
Newswire, New York, Sept. 9, 2003 article.wn.com/view/2003/09/09/Amnesty_International_Labels_Recruitment_of_Child_Soldiers_W/ [accessed 5
September 2014] In a new report released
today Amnesty International (AI) criticized demobilization of child soldiers
in eastern Congo as timid and ineffective, claiming that among certain rebel
groups demobilization is merely a public relations ploy that often ends in
the re-recruitment of those recently demobilized. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) [DOC] UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 29 September 2006 www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf/898586b1dc7b4043c1256a450044f331/2a3dc64e60de1887c125722700438d40/$FILE/G0644909.doc [accessed 27
February 2011] [79] While noting with
appreciation the ratification by the State party of relevant ILO Conventions,
as well as the adoption of an appropriate legislative framework, the
Committee is concerned at the lack of data on the issue of economic
exploitation of children. The Committee is also concerned at information
according to which children, in particular indigenous children, are exploited
economically. Finally, the Committee is concerned at reports that children,
in particular from the Democratic Republic of Congo and indigenous children,
are recruited to clean sewers and latrines manually, which is extremely
hazardous to their health. Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 8 June 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/congo2001.html [accessed 30 January
2011] [64] The Committee is
deeply concerned at the direct and indirect impact of the armed conflict on
almost all children in the State party. The Committee is concerned at the
deliberate killing of children by armed forces of the State party, armed
forces of other State parties that have participated in the conflict and by
other armed groups, and by the continuing impunity for such acts constituting
very serious violations of children's rights. The Committee is concerned at, inter alia, the recruitment and use of children as
soldiers by the State party and by other actors in the armed conflict,
including children under 15. The Committee notes with appreciation the
creation of a special bureau for the demobilization and re-integration of
child soldiers (DUNABER), but is concerned about the effectiveness of this
bureau. [66] The Committee
joins the State party in expressing concern at the prevalence of child labour, especially in informal sectors which frequently
fall outside the protections afforded by domestic legislation (see paragraph
87 of the State party's report). The Committee is deeply concerned at the use
of children to work in the Kasaï mines, in
locations in [68] The Committee is
deeply concerned by information, including for example in the State party's
report, of the trading, trafficking, kidnapping and use for pornography of
young girls and boys within the State party, or from the State party to
another country, and that domestic legislation does not sufficiently protect
children from trafficking. The Protection
Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/congod.doc [Last accessed 2009] FACTORS THAT
CONTRIBUTE TO THE TRAFFICKING INFRASTRUCTURE - Sexual violence was used as a
weapon of war by nearly all the factions involved in the conflict in the eastern
DRC. Groups frequently and systematically raped women and girls in order to
terrorize communities into accepting their control or to punish them for
giving real or supposed aid to opposing forces. Combatants abducted women and
took them to base camps, where they were forced to be sex slaves or domestic
servants. Rape and other sexual crimes were not carried out solely by armed
groups in the DRC; police, government authorities, and common criminals were
“taking advantage of the prevailing climate of impunity and the culture of
violence against women and girls.” Human Rights
Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide www.hrw.org/africa/democratic-republic-congo [accessed 30 January
2011] ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** 2017 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 20 April 2018 www.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2017/af/276987.htm [accessed 20 March
2019] [accessed 25 June
2019] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR There were reports
that forced labor, including forced child labor, regularly occurred
throughout the country. Violations included bonded labor, domestic servitude,
and slavery. In the artisanal (nonindustrial) mining sector, individuals took
on debt from intermediaries and dealers to acquire food, supplies, and mining
tools and equipment, often at high interest rates despite low wages. Miners
who failed to provide sufficient ore to pay debt were at risk of becoming
perennial debtors. The government continued to try to formalize the artisanal
mining sector but did not attempt to regulate this practice. In the East RMGs
continued to abduct and forcibly recruit men, women, and children to serve as
laborers, porters, domestic laborers, and combatants (see section 1.g.). In
eastern mining regions, there were reports that armed groups violently
attacked mining communities and surrounding villages and held men, women, and
children captive for trafficking, including forced labor and sexual
exploitation. In North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, some members of FARDC
units and RMGs taxed or, in some cases, controlled mining activities in gold,
coltan, wolframite, and cassiterite
mines. Some police officers
arrested individuals arbitrarily to extort money from them (see section
1.d.). There were reports of police forcing those who could not pay to work
until they “earned” their freedom. The government did
not effectively enforce laws prohibiting forced or compulsory labor and took
no action against those who used forced labor and abducted civilians for
forced labor. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Children were also
the victims of exploitation in the worst forms of child labor, many of them
in agriculture, illicit activities, and domestic work. Children mined
diamonds, gold, cobalt, coltan, wolframite, copper,
and cassiterite under hazardous conditions. In the
mining regions of Upper Katanga, Kasai Oriental, Kasai Central, North Kivu,
and South Kivu provinces, children sifted, cleaned, sorted, transported heavy
loads and dug for minerals underground. In many areas of the country,
children between the ages of five and 12 broke rocks to make gravel. Parents often used
children for dangerous and difficult agricultural labor. Families unable to
support their children occasionally sent them to live with relatives who
treated them as domestic slaves, subjecting them to physical and sexual
abuse. Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61563.htm [accessed 7 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– There was no information available on reports from late 2004 that persons
were recruiting children in Internal
trafficking for forced labor and forced sexual exploitation occurred and
child prostitution were reported. The majority of reported trafficking
occurred in the northeast and east. In eastern parts of
the country, armed groups operating outside government control continued to
kidnap men, women, and children and force them to provide menial labor and
sexual services for members of armed groups
In addition armed groups abducted children to serve as combatants in
areas under their control. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/congo-brazzaville.htm [accessed 30 January
2011] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The Ministry of Family
Affairs and Labor began to implement an action plan against sexual
exploitation of persons, and the Government has attended regional meetings on
trafficking and sought to coordinate with neighboring governments to address
the problem. All
material used herein reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107
for noncommercial, nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT
ARTICLES. Cite this webpage as: Patt,
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