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/Gabon.htm
Gabon is a
destination country for children and young adults trafficked for the purposes
of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Girls are primarily
trafficked for domestic servitude, forced market vending, forced restaurant
labor, and commercial sexual exploitation, while boys are trafficked for
forced street hawking and forced labor in small workshops. Children reportedly
are also trafficked to Gabon from other African countries for forced labor in
agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, and mining. Inc Reports also
indicate that some indigenous Pygmies are subjected to slavery-like
conditions, without effective recourse in the judicial system. - 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 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 *** Written statement
from Anti-Slavery International for agenda item 13 of the provisional agenda UN Economic and
Social Council, Commission on Human Rights, 56th Session, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 5
September 2011] Traffickers promise
good money and training in order to persuade the parents to send their
children abroad. However, after the children arrive in ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Gabon U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, 30 March 2021 www.state.gov/reports/2020-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/gabon/
[accessed 7 June 7,
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR Boys were subject
to forced labor as mechanics, as well as in work in handicraft shops and sand
quarries. Boys and men were subject to forced labor in agriculture, animal
husbandry, fishing, and mining. Girls and women were exploited in domestic
servitude, market vending, restaurants, and commercial sexual exploitation.
Conditions included very low pay and long forced hours. Migrants were
especially vulnerable to forced labor (see section 7.c.). Limited reporting
suggested that illegal and unregulated foreign fishing trawlers may have
engaged in the forced labor of boys. Widespread poverty resulted in the
increased risk of exploitation in the country, but the small scale of
artisanal fishing suggested that trafficking was limited to foreign fishing
operations. The industrial fishing fleet operating in Gabonese territorial
waters was composed mostly of illegal, primarily Chinese, industrial-scale
fish trawlers, with unknown status of workers on board. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Children were
sometimes subject to forced and exploitive labor in markets, restaurants, and
handicraft shops, as well as on farms and in sand quarries. Due to the impact
of the COVID-19 pandemic, as of October the government had not organized the
repatriation of any foreign children exploited in trafficking. Noncitizen children
were more likely than were children of citizens to work in informal and
illegal sectors of the economy, where laws against child labor were seldom
enforced. An unknown number of children, primarily noncitizens, worked in
marketplaces or performed domestic labor. Many of these children were the
victims of child trafficking (see section 7.b.). According to NGOs, some
citizen children, particularly street children, also worked in the informal
sector. Child laborers
generally did not attend school, received only limited medical attention, and
often experienced exploitation by employers or foster families. In an effort
to curb the problem, police often fined the parents of children who were not
in school. Laws forbidding child labor covered these children, but abuses
often were not reported. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/gabon/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 27 April
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Wage standards and
laws against forced labor are poorly enforced, particularly in the informal sector
and with respect to foreign workers. Both adults and children are exploited
in a number of different occupations, and foreign women are trafficked to
Gabon for prostitution or domestic servitude. 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 27 April
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 425] Gabon is primarily
a destination and transit country for victims of child trafficking from other
countries in Central and West Africa. (1; 3; 13; 16; 10; 4) Some parents
entrust their children to intermediaries who subject them to child
trafficking for labor exploitation rather than providing education and safe
work opportunities; however, there is limited evidence of child trafficking
occurring within Gabon. (4) A national child labor survey or similar research
has not been conducted in Gabon. (17). 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. War is Boring: U.S.
Navy Renders Aid to Gabonese Trafficking Victims David Axe, World
Politics Review, [partially accessed
6 February 2011 - access restricted] It's a crisis that
intersects with another. Across Mail & Guardian
Online, At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 5
September 2011] Child trafficking
to Rights-Gabon:
Hopefully, the Beginning of the End for Child Traffickers Antoine Lawson,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, [accessed 16 July
2013] For the first time
in its history, the country is to try persons accused of these crimes. Eight nationals from GABON: Laws fail to
curb child trafficking racket Integrated Regional
Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report/52911/gabon-laws-fail-to-curb-child-trafficking-racket [accessed 9 March
2015] UNICEF: War fuels
Africa human trafficking Jonathan Fowler,
Associated Press, apnews.com/b27f9b0b3192888782d9c3e4cb15c893 [accessed 27 April
2020] "Every country
represents a different problem," Rossi told reporters at a meeting of
African Union ministers in Benin. "But at the national level in Integrated Regional
Information Networks IRIN, [accessed 9 March
2015] Most children and
women rights activists say much will not be achieved towards eradicating
human trafficking without first dealing effectively with widespread poverty
in Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org/en/news/2003/04/01/west-africa-stop-trafficking-child-labor [accessed 6 February
2011] Girls interviewed by
Human Rights Watch were told to board ships for Children’s
testimony from Borderline Slavery: Child Trafficking in Togo Human Rights Watch
Testimonies, April 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 5
September 2011] ON THEIR RECRUITMENT
BY CHILD TRAFFICKERS
- My friend had an aunt in Modern-Day Slavery?
- The scope of trafficking in persons in Kathleen Fitzgibbon,
African Security Review, Vol 12 No 1, 2003 www.popline.org/node/232382 [accessed 16 July
2013] www.aracorporation.org/files/trafficking.pdf [accessed 27 April
2020] INTRODUCTION - Chikezie is a 13-year-old from Nigeria who was in fourth
grade when a man from his area promised his family to educate him. Upon
arrival in TYPES AND EXTENT OF
TRAFFICKING IN AFRICA - TRAFFICKING FOR FORCED LABOUR - The ILO also
estimates 200,000 to 300,000 children are trafficked each year for forced
labour and sexual exploitation in West and Rogue Voyage of a
21st Century African Slave Ship Austin Baynow, Strategy Page, April 19, 2001 www.strategypage.com/on_point/20010419.aspx [accessed 6 February
2011] The West African
child slave traffic works like this: Smugglers coax families in flat-broke
countries like African "slave
ship" highlights spread of child slavery Trevor Johnson, World
Socialist Web Site, 19 April 2001 www.wsws.org/articles/2001/apr2001/slav-a19.shtml [accessed 6 February
2011] On March 30, the MV
Etireno set sail from New Global Treaty
to Combat "Sex Slavery" United Nations
Department of Public Information, DPI/2098, February 2000 -- Tenth United
Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders books.google.com/books/about/New_Global_Treaty_to_Combat_sex_Slavery.html?id=oQF1PAAACAAJ [accessed 3
September 2014] CHILDREN SOLD OR
KIDNAPPED
- According to Anti-Slavery International, children aged 8 to 15 years are
"recruited" or kidnapped from backward villages of the poorest
countries in Africa, such as Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 1 February 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/gabon2002.html [accessed 6 February
2011] [59] While noting
the criminalization of trafficking of children in a recent Act of 2001 and
the establishment of a national inter-ministerial committee to fight against
trafficking in children, and the serious commitment of the State party with
regard to this issue, the Committee is deeply concerned at the large number
of trafficked children, particularly children coming from abroad, who are
still exploited, mostly in the informal labour
market, or enslaved. The Protection
Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/gabon.doc [Last accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - Children are
trafficked primarily for domestic labor, as well as for work as street and
market vendors. The majority of
children trafficked from In addition,
children from Child labor is
extremely widespread. An estimated 53,000 of the 132,000 children living in ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61570.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– Children (especially girls), primarily from SECTION
6 WORKER RIGHTS
– [d] An unknown number of children‑‑primarily foreign‑‑worked
in marketplaces or performed domestic duties; many of these children were
reportedly the victims of child trafficking. Such children generally did not
attend school, received only limited medical attention, and often were
exploited by employers or foster families. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/gabon.htm [accessed 6 February
2011] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Children are also reported to be trafficked into
Gabon from Equatorial Guinea. Children
who are purchased in All
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