Human Trafficking in [Mali Street Children in [Mali] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mali] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Republic
of Mali [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Mali is a source, transit, and destination country for women
and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual
exploitation. Victims are trafficked from rural to urban areas within Mali
and between Mali and other West African countries, most notably Burkina Faso,
Cote d’Ivoire, Guinea, Senegal, and Mauritania. Women and girls are
trafficked primarily for domestic servitude and, to a lesser extent, sexual
exploitation, and boys are trafficked for forced begging and forced labor in
agriculture and gold mines. Mali may be a transit country for victims,
primarily adults, trafficked from other African countries through Mali to
North Africa and Europe. Although slavery is illegal in Mali, slavery-related
practices, rooted in historical master-slave relationships, continue in some
rural areas of the country. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report,
June, 2008 [full
country report] |
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CAUTION:
The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLE *** Chocolate
and Slavery: Child Labor in Cote d'Ivoire SLAVERY AND THE LINK TO CHOCOLATE - Slave traders are trafficking
boys ranging from the age of 12 to 16 from their home countries and are
selling them to cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. They work on small farms across
the country, harvesting the cocoa beans day and night, under inhumane
conditions. Most of the boys come from
neighboring Mali, where agents
hang around bus stations looking for children that are alone or are begging
for food. They lure the kids to travel to Cote d'Ivoire with them, and then
the traffickers sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor
(Raghavan, "Lured..."). ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S. Dept
of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - CURRENT
GOVERNMENT POLICIES AND PROGRAMS TO ELIMINATE THE WORST FORMS OF CHILD LABOR - The Government of Mali is one of nine countries
participating in the US DOL-funded ILO-IPEC project to combat the trafficking
of children for exploitive labor in West and Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – The
country was a source, transit, and destination for trafficking. Most of the trafficking
occurred within the country's borders during the year. Children were
trafficked to rice fields in the central regions; boys were trafficked to
mines in the south; and girls were trafficked for involuntary domestic
servitude in Concluding
Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of The Child (CRC) - 1999 [23] The Committee welcomes the
recent initiative undertaken by the State party in establishing the National
Commission to Study inter-country Adoption and Combat Trafficking in
Children. The Committee notes that the final report of the Commission, due in
October 1999, will include legislative and other recommendations to protect
the rights of children in situations of adoption and to prevent and combat
the phenomenon of trafficking in children. The Committee remains concerned,
however, at the absence of legislation, policies and institutions to regulate
inter-country adoptions. The lack of monitoring with respect to both domestic
and inter-country adoptions and the widespread practice of kalifa (informal
adoptions) are also matters of concern. [36] While the Committee notes the
efforts of the State party, it remains concerned at the increasing incidence
of sale and trafficking of children, particularly girls, and the lack of
adequate legal and other measures to prevent and combat this phenomenon. Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 2 Civil Liberties: 3 Status: Free Mali Signs
Agreement With Senegal To Curb Child Trafficking Mali has signed its third
agreement with a neighboring country to fight child trafficking, which UNICEF
says occurs in 89 percent of African countries. Senegal joined Ivory Coast
and Burkina Faso as signatories to the agreement, which mandates an annual
survey of child trafficking to make sure children sent over their borders are
kept safe. GUINEA:
Child trafficking from Mali revealed by car crash The death of three girls in a road
accident last month led to investigations which revealed the existence of a
network the trafficks children into Guinea from neighbouring Mali for use as
unpaid domestic servants. United
Nations officials in the Guinean capital Conakry said the three who died were
part of a group of eight Malian girls smuggled into the country for use as
forced labour. The five surviving
girls, two of whom were injured in the crash, were found living with a woman
in Conakry and have since been returned home. Attempts to
prevent human trafficking are making conditions worse for voluntary migrants A survey of close to 1000 migrants
in Mali found that only four had been deceived, exploited, or not paid for
their labour. Rather, young people voluntarily sought employment abroad to
experience urban lifestyles, learn new languages, and accumulate possessions. Mali
rescues over 100 from child traffickers Malian authorities have rescued
more than 100 children and teenagers from suspected traffickers believed to
be taking them into forced labor in rice fields, officials in the West
African nation said Tuesday. Police stopped
112 minors aged between 10 and 18 as they traveled in buses over the weekend
in the Segou region, northeast of the capital Bamako. They arrested two
suspected traffickers. Mali's
dangerous desert gateway The city of Gao in northeastern
Mali was once the wealthy capital of the great Songhay Empire of West
Africa. Today it has fallen on hard
times and become the impoverished capital of human trafficking from West
Africa to Europe. Chocolate
and Slavery: Child Labor in Cote d'Ivoire SLAVERY AND THE LINK TO CHOCOLATE - Slave traders are trafficking
boys ranging from the age of 12 to 16 from their home countries and are
selling them to cocoa farmers in Cote d'Ivoire. They work on small farms
across the country, harvesting the cocoa beans day and night, under inhumane
conditions. Most of the boys come from
neighboring Mali, where agents
hang around bus stations looking for children that are alone or are begging
for food. They lure the kids to travel to Cote d'Ivoire with them, and then
the traffickers sell the children to farmers in need of cheap labor
(Raghavan, "Lured..."). Mali and Slavery. There are an estimated 15,000
Malian youth ages 15 to 18 who are enslaved in the Ivory Coast, lured by
smugglers who promise the youth and their parents high wages and training.
Instead, most do manual labor in cocoa plantations. A slave is defined by the ILO as
someone "forced to work under physical or mental threat, and where the
owner or employer controls the person completely - where a person is bought
or sold." Mali's children in
chocolate slavery At a run-down police station in
Sikasso, a small town in Mali, the files on missing children are
endless. The sad truth is that many
have been kidnapped and sold into slavery. The going price is about
US$30. The local police chief is in no
doubt where the children have gone. "It's definitely slavery over
there," he said. "The kids have to work so hard they get sick and
some even die." Child
Slaves Caught in Glittering Traps The next day, the Sylla brothers
found themselves captive in a windowless hut -- caught in the web of
smugglers who coax unknown numbers of young people out of impoverished Mali
each year and sell them into hard labor in the prosperous country next door,
Ivory Coast. The Sylla brothers sold for the price of a pair of shoes -- $63
apiece. The years that followed are a
blur of backbreaking labor, vicious beatings, food deprivation and dark
nights in captivity. They number about 15,000 and their
plight is enough to "make you weep", says Malian Minister of Woman and
Family Affairs They are child slaves from Mali, between the ages of six and
16, and they work on plantations in neighbouring Ivory Coast, where Ms Thiero
says they are regularly beaten, starved and locked in tiny dark huts to keep
them from fleeing. "One small boy
brought me to tears when he told of how he drank his own urine for three days
because the plantation owners had locked him up without food or water," Labour
standards violated in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali Although Benin, Burkina Faso and
Mali have ratified the core Conventions on Forced Labour, the practice does
exist, Ms Kwateng denounces. "Many women and children are trafficked for
forced prostitution, forced labour on plantations and domestic work,"
she adds. Moreover, many Beninese,
Burkinabe and Malian children are reported to be sold to neighbouring
countries - like Togo and Côte d'Ivoire - and forced to work on plantations
or in domestic work under harsh and dangerous conditions while receiving very
low pay, if any at all. 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 [Mali Street Children in [Mali] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Mali] [other countries]