Torture in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Human Trafficking in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Street Children in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Lesotho] [other countries]
 

Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery

In the early years of the 21st Century gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Lesotho.htm

Kingdom of Lesotho As the number of mineworkers has declined steadily over the past several years, a small manufacturing base has developed based on farm products that support the milling, canning, leather, and jute industries, as well as a rapidly expanding apparel-assembly sector. The economy is still primarily based on subsistence agriculture, especially livestock, although drought has decreased agricultural activity. The extreme inequality in the distribution of income remains a major drawback. Lesotho has signed an Interim Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility with the IMF. [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

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 [full country report]

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.

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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.

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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]

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.

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

www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61576.htm

[accessed 18 February 2011]

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.

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 - 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.

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.

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]

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.

Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2   Civil Liberties: 3   Status: Free

2009 Edition

www.freedomhouse.org/report/freedom-world/2009/lesotho

[accessed 26 June 2012]

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Torture in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Human Trafficking in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Street Children in [Lesotho] [other countries]
Child Prostitution in [Lesotho] [other countries]