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/Lesotho.htm
Lesotho is a source
country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual
exploitation and forced labor. Victims are trafficked internally and to South
Africa for domestic work, farm labor, and commercial sexual exploitation.
Women and girls are also brought to South Africa for forced marriages in
remote villages. Nigerian traffickers acquire Basotho victims for involuntary
servitude in households of Nigerian families living in London. Chinese
organized crime units acquire victims while transiting Lesotho and traffic
them to Johannesburg, where they “distribute” them locally or traffic them
overseas. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 Check
out a later country report here and possibly a full TIP Report here |
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CAUTION: The following links have
been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Lesotho. Some of these links may lead to websites
that present allegations that are unsubstantiated or even false. No
attempt has been made to validate their authenticity or to verify their content. 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
Protection Project - Lesotho [DOC] The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),
The Johns Hopkins University www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/lesotho.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING – Children from
rural areas of the country who are escaping hardship and the effects of
HIV/AIDS gravitate toward Maseru, where they are coerced or kidnapped by
Afrikaans-speaking white South Africans. They are taken across the border in
private cars to asparagus farms and border towns in eastern Free State. There
they are held captive in private homes, where they suffer a particularly
“sadistic and macabre” sort of exploitation. The children are often locked in
the house and left alone during the day; at night they are violently raped
and verbally and sexually assaulted by groups of white men. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Lesotho 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/lesotho/
[accessed 14 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR Forced labor,
including forced child labor, continued to occur in the sectors of domestic
work and agricultural work. Victims of forced labor were either children or
workers in the informal sector. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Government
regulations on children working as herdboys
regulate the work and distinguish between legal “child work” and illegal
“child labor.” The guidelines apply to children younger than age 18 and
strictly prohibit the engagement of children at a cattle post, the huts where
herders stay when in remote mountain rangelands. In line with international
conventions and standards, the law considers herding by children to be
illegal child labor only if it deprives herdboys of
the opportunity to attend school, obliges them to leave school prematurely,
or requires them to combine school attendance with excessively long hours and
difficult working conditions. The highest estimated percentage of working
children was in herding. Freedom House
Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/lesotho/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 8 July
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? Human trafficking
remains an ongoing challenge for Lesotho. The US State Department’s 2019
Trafficking in Persons Report found Lesotho’s legal framework for prosecuting
trafficking to be weak, without strong penalties to deter offenders. Other
identified problems include a lack of criminal convictions for trafficking, a
large backlog of trafficking cases, and a failure to investigate officials
implicated in trafficking. However, the government has improved its capacity
to identify and provide support to potential victims of trafficking. Child
labor and forced labor for both men and women, however, remains a problem. 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 18 April
2019] www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 1 May
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 605] Lesotho is a
source, transit, and destination country for human trafficking. Children in
Lesotho are subjected to commercial sexual exploitation and forced to work as
domestic workers and animal herders, sometimes as a result of human
trafficking. (6) Children sometimes voluntarily travel to neighboring
countries such as South Africa for domestic work,
and upon arrival are subsequently detained in prison-like conditions and
sexually exploited. (6) Currently, the
government has published no data on the prevalence of child labor, including
its worst forms. (5) In 2017, however, the Bureau of Statistics amended the
Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey and Labor Force Survey to include a child labor
module. The statistics with the child labor module are scheduled for release
in 2018. (5) Of note, in 2017,
the Lesotho Population-based HIV Impact Assessment reported that the HIV rate
in adults (ages 15–59) is 25.6 percent, the second-highest HIV rate in adults
worldwide. (5; 12) Many children in Lesotho become orphans due to the high
rate of HIV among adults. (10; 7; 13; 14; 15) Children, mostly HIV orphans
driven by poverty, migrate from rural to urban areas to engage in commercial
sexual exploitation. (7; 16) Also, children with disabilities are vulnerable
to the worst forms of child labor as they encounter difficulties accessing
education due to ill-equipped educational facilities and untrained teachers.
(17) UNICEF reported a 45 percent rate in birth registrations. NGOs confirmed
that the low number of birth registrations results in children becoming
stateless. (18; 19) These factors increase the vulnerability of children to
the worst forms of child labor, such as human trafficking. South Africa linked
in the global human trafficking Yazeed Kamaldien,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, Johannesburg, March 8, 2005 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8
September 2011] She says that there
have been reports children from neighboring Lesotho have been trafficked for
labor by farmers in South Africa’s Free State province. In 2003 a research study by the
International Organization for Migration (IOM) also found that South Africa
is a main destination for trafficked women and children. Seduction,
Sale & Slavery: Trafficking In Women & Children For Sexual
Exploitation In Southern Africa [PDF] Jonathan Martens, Maciej ‘Mac’ Pieczkowski &
Bernadette van Vuuren-Smyth, International
Organization for Migration IOM, Pretoria SA, May 2003 At one time this
article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8
September 2011] EXECUTIVE SUMMARY - The major
findings may be summarized as follows: In Lesotho,
children from rural areas gravitate to Maseru to escape domestic violence,
and the effects of HIV/AIDS. As street children, they are coerced or forcibly
abducted by white men before being taken across the border with the consent
of border officials to border towns and asparagus farms in the Eastern Free
State. There they are held captive in private houses where they are sexually
and sadistically assaulted over several days by small groups of men. These
children are finally returned to the border, or deposited on the streets of
towns in the Eastern Free State to find their own way home. Street children
in Maseru are also trafficked by long-distance truck drivers, who use them as
sex slaves on their routes. These children travel as far as Cape Town,
Zimbabwe, and Zambia. Human
Trafficking Stretches Across the Region Moyiga Nduru,
Inter Press Service News Agency IPS, Benoni SA,
June 23, 2004 www.ipsnews.net/africa/interna.asp?idnews=24338 [accessed 18
February 2011] www.ipsnews.net/2004/06/rights-southern-africa-human-trafficking-stretches-across-the-region/ [accessed 20
September 2016] Women from rural
China, many of them poorly-educated, are often brought to South Africa, said
Martens. The women are flown to Johannesburg, and then taken to Swaziland,
Lesotho or Mozambique. They then cross the border back into South Africa -
all this in a bid to circumvent airport immigration controls. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 26 January 2001 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/lesotho2001.html [accessed 18
February 2011] [55] Labor laws
regulating child labor do exist in the State party, but the Committee notes
with concern the high and increasing number of children, especially boys,
employed as animal herders, inter alia, and children employed as street
traders, porters and in textile and garment factories. The Committee is
concerned, in addition, at the number of children working in potentially
dangerous conditions and at the lack of monitoring and supervision of the
conditions in which they work. The
Protection Project - Zambia [DOC] The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS),
The Johns Hopkins University www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/zambia.doc [accessed 2009] TRAFFICKING ROUTES – Zambia is a
country of destination for street children from Lesotho’s capital, Maseru. ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices U.S. Dept of State Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and
Labor, March 8, 2006 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61576.htm [accessed 9 February
2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The law does not specifically prohibit trafficking in persons. During the
year the minister of Gender and the assistant minister of Education publicly
stated their concern about six cases of child trafficking and the possible
increase of trafficking‑related activities. There were no official
statistics available on the issue of trafficking. The police can charge
persons suspected of trafficking under the Labor code, the CPA, and
kidnapping statutes enshrined in the constitution. The Ministry of Home
Affairs and the GCPU are responsible for monitoring trafficking. The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor U.S. Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs, 2005 www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/lesotho.htm [accessed 18 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 - Boys as young as 4 years are employed in hazardous
conditions as livestock herders in the highlands, either for their family or
through an arrangement where they are hired out by their parents. 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,
Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery -
Lesotho", http://gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Lesotho.htm, [accessed
<date>] |
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