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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/Mauritius.htm

Republic of Mauritius

Since independence in 1968, Mauritius has developed from a low-income, agriculturally based economy to a middle-income diversified economy with growing industrial, financial, and tourist sectors. For most of the period, annual growth has been in the order of 5% to 6%. This remarkable achievement has been reflected in more equitable income distribution, increased life expectancy, lowered infant mortality, and a much-improved infrastructure. The economy rests on sugar, tourism, textiles and apparel, and financial services, and is expanding into fish processing, information and communications technology, and hospitality and property development. Sugarcane is grown on about 90% of the cultivated land area and accounts for 15% of export earnings.  [The World Factbook, U.S.C.I.A. 2009]

Description: Description: Mauritius

Mauritius is a source for children trafficked within the country for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Secondary school-age girls and, to a lesser extent, younger girls from all areas of the island, including from Rodrigues Island, are induced into prostitution, often by their peers, family members, or businessmen offering other forms of employment. Taxi drivers are known to provide transportation and introductions for both the girls and the clients. Boys whose mothers engage in prostitution are reportedly forced into prostitution at a young age. Some drug-addicted women are forced to engage in prostitution by their boyfriends, who serve as pimps. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009    Check out a later country report here and possibly a full TIP Report here

 

CAUTION:  The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in Mauritius.  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.

*** ARCHIVES ***

2020 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Mauritius

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/mauritius/

[accessed 16 June 2021]

PROHIBITION OF FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR

Trade unionists reported cases of forced labor during the year among migrant workers involving passport confiscation, underpayment of wages, substandard living conditions, lack of clearly defined work titles, denial of meal allowances, and deportation. As of September 30, there were 44,967 migrant workers in the country, mainly from Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, China, and Madagascar. In addition, Malagasy women reportedly transited the country while traveling to other countries, where employers subjected them to forced labor conditions.

PROHIBITION OF CHILD LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT

Children were engaged in commercial sexual exploitation and illicit activities (see section 6, Children). Children worked in the informal sector, including as street traders, and in small businesses, restaurants, agriculture, small apparel workshops, and retail shops.

Freedom House Country Report

2020 Edition

freedomhouse.org/country/mauritius/freedom-world/2020

[accessed 23 July 2020]

G4. DO INDIVIDUALS ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION?

There are legal protections against exploitative working conditions, but the roughly 40,000 migrant workers in the manufacturing and construction sectors can face abuses. There have been reports of employers confiscating workers’ passports, and of migrant workers becoming beholden to recruitment agents who charge huge fees for placement in a job. Both foreign and Mauritian women and girls have been targeted by sex traffickers. While the government has made some efforts to prosecute sex and labor traffickers and provide services to victims, these efforts are generally inadequate.

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 3 May 2020]

Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL Worst Forms of Child Labor

[page 677]

Some children in Mauritius are lured into commercial sexual exploitation by their peers or family members, or through false offers of other employment. (10; 5; 1) Mauritius has never conducted a national child labor survey, and therefore information on the prevalence of child labor in the country is limited. (4).

ECPAT UK Campaigner

ECPAT UK Thomas Clarkson House, Broomgrove Road, London, July 2004

At one time this article had been archived and may possibly still be accessible [here]

[accessed 8 September 2011]

[scroll down]

CASES - A Liberian girl had been forced into domestic work with a family in Mauritius, and kept locked in. She was told that if she came to the UK she would get an education. Instead she was forced into domestic servitude, sexually abused and prostituted.

Protection Project Country Report

The Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS), The Johns Hopkins University

www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/mauritius.doc

[accessed 2009]

www.protectionproject.org/country-reports/

[accessed 13 February 2019]

A Human Rights Report on Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children

TRAFFICKING ROUTES - Mauritius is a destination country for trafficking in women and children. Children have been trafficked to Mauritius from Madagascar.

NONGOVERNMENTAL AND INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION RESPONSES - Shelter for Women and Children in Distress runs rehabilitation programs for victims of commercial sexual exploitation. Social workers have also participated in a training session with End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography, and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT) International.

*** 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/2005/61582.htm

[accessed 10 February 2020]

TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – The law prohibits trafficking in persons, and in December the legislature amended the Child Protection Act, increasing the maximum punishment for trafficking to 15 years and expanding the definition of trafficking. There were reports that children were trafficked within the country for child prostitution. There were reports that some schoolgirls worked in conjunction with prostitution rings or family members.

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/mauritius.htm

[accessed 20 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 - Mauritius has an estimated 2,600 child prostitutes and is a source and destination country for children trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. Children are also trafficked internally for exploitation in the sex tourism industry.

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