Human Trafficking in [Togo Street Children in [Togo] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Togo] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early years
of the 21st Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Togo.htm
Togo is a source, transit and, to a lesser extent, a
destination country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of
forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking within Togo is
more prevalent than transnational trafficking and the majority of victims are
children. Togolese girls are trafficked primarily within the country for
domestic servitude, for forced work as market vendors and produce porters,
and for commercial sexual exploitation. To a lesser extent, girls from Togo
are also trafficked to other African countries, primarily Benin, Nigeria,
Ghana, and Niger, for the same purposes listed above. Although some Togolese
boys are trafficked within the country, they are more commonly trafficked transnationally to work in agricultural labor, including
on cocoa farms, in other African countries, primarily Nigeria, Cote d’Ivoire,
Gabon and Benin. - U.S. State Dept
Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Children rescued from trafficking wait with their
nightmares to go home U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=53334 [accessed 30 December 2010] The wisp of a girl sits silently
to one side, staring at the scarred tips of her fingers. Probably no more
than five years old, Enyonam has just arrived at a
center for trafficked children in the Togolese capital, HRW Report: Human Rights Watch, 1 April 2003 www.hrw.org/en/node/76184/section/1 [accessed 30 December 2010] SUMMARY - SUMMARY - Boys worked from as early as 5:00
a.m. until late at night, sometimes with hazardous equipment such as saws or
machetes. Some described conditions of bonded labor, whereby their trafficker
would pay for their journey to ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/togo.htm [accessed 30 December 2010] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - In rural areas, young children are sometimes placed in domestic
work in exchange for a one-time fee of 15,000 to 20,000 CFA francs (USD 27.47
to 36.63) paid to their parents. In
remote parts of the country, a form of bonded labor occurs in the traditional
practice known as trokosi, where young girls become
slaves to priests for offenses allegedly committed by a member of their
family. Abuse of the cultural practice
of Amegbonovei, through which extended family
relations help to place children (usually from rural areas) with families who
agree to pay for the children’s education or provide them with a salary in
exchange for domestic work, contributes to the incidence of child
trafficking. Often the intermediaries who arrange the placements abuse
the children and rape the girls. These children are also sometimes
mistreated by the families with whom they are placed. 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/2005/61597.htm [accessed 30 December 2010] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – While
official statistics for trafficked persons were not available, trafficking
occurred throughout the country. The majority of the country's trafficking
victims were children from the poorest rural areas, particularly those of Kotocoli, Tchamba, Ewe, Kabye, and Akposso ethnicities
and mainly from the Maritime, Plateau, and Central regions. Adult victims
usually were lured with phony job offers. Children were often trafficked abroad by parents misled by false information.
Sometimes parents sold their children to traffickers for bicycles, radios, or
clothing, and signed parental authorizations transferring their children into
the custody of the trafficker. Children were trafficked into
indentured and exploitative servitude, which amounted at times to slavery.
Most trafficking occurred internally, with children trafficked from rural
areas to cities, primarily Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of
the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 28 January 2005 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/togo2005b.html [accessed 30 December 2010] [72] The Committee welcomes the
adoption of the National Plan of Action on the fight against child
trafficking for commercial exploitation and labor in 2001 as well as the
establishment of the Comités de vigilance .
However, the Committee is concerned that the Plan of Action did not
sufficiently involve the civil society and is not efficiently implemented. It
is further concerned that trafficking of children is not a separate offence
under the law, despite the wide scope prevalence of the phenomenon. The
Committee is further concerned by at the lack of measures taken to combat and
protect children from sale, trafficking and abduction. In Kevin www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/12/26/ST2008122600004.html [accessed 30 December 2010] Adiza ran scared and crying into the
street. Ten years old and 4-foot-9, she fled the house where she had worked
for more than a year, cleaning and sweeping from before dawn until late at
night. She ran to a woman selling
food in the street and told her that since the day she had arrived in this
capital city from her village in the country, her employer had beaten her
almost daily and kept her in slavelike
conditions. "I couldn't take any
more," recalled Adiza, a slight girl with
close-cropped hair and almond-shaped eyes, who talked in a halting whisper as
she described how her employer beat her with her hands and with cooking pots
before the November day she ran away. Rarely making eye contact, Adiza spoke in a shelter here surrounded by other tiny
girls who had suffered physical or sexual abuse in the growing global trade
in domestic servants. The number of
girls like Adiza, who leave their communities or
even their countries to clean other people's houses, has surged in recent
years, according to labor and human rights specialists. The girls in the maid
trade, some as young as 5, often go unpaid, and their work in private homes
means the abuses they suffer are out of public view. A FRAYING OF TRUST - Adiza
was raised in Kpatchile, a few mud huts scattered
among fields of corn and yams 250 miles north of A closer look at domestic child labour in Africa Konye Obaji Ori, AFRIK News, 18 October 2008 www.afrik-news.com/article14712.html [accessed 30 December 2010] When my master brought me from the
village, he said that I will show that I deserved to go to school by proving
my hard work at home. I was bent on going to school so I put my heart into
everything I was commanded to do. I Swept, cleaned, washed, mopped, ironed,
and fetched water from a public tap, two streets away, to fill the drums and
basins in our house. In-between these
chores I had to go out and hawk sachets water in traffic and in the streets
of the ghetto. I slept last and woke up first. I didn’t eat with my master,
his wife and his children at table, I ate a small portion of foodon the floor at the back yard, after they had all
eaten. Sometimes I could not work because I was always hungry, but I had to
work otherwise knocks and the Koboko cane will
descend on me.’ An 8 year old Togolese househelp
narrated. In most African families, wealth
entails owning a houseboy or a house girl as they are called. This cultural
practice that allows people to take deprived children from the remote
villages, offer them shelter, food and sometimes primary education in return
for their labor which is often child labor or even slave labor, is an issue
that needs to be addressed with regards to human rights, child rights and
international labor rights After 3 years, my master
registered me in a community school down the street. It was more like a place
where street children passed time, the teachers
hardly came to class. My chores and task were still a problem but I managed
to deliver, so as to avoid any problem with my master or his wife. I liked
school, I wanted to learn but I hardy had time to review my school work or do
assignments and when I did poorly, my master or his wife would beat me like a
thief. Sometimes I thought of running away, but to where? I wanted to go back
to my mother, but how do I tell my uncle that, when the last time I asked
about my mother, I was given the beating of my life, called an ingrate and
denied food for two days. I wasn’t doing well at school, I wasn’t happy at
home, I missed my mother, but I couldn’t do anything about it. All my mother
knew was that her son was in the city and was in school, and will be a big
shot.’ In smuggling case, 'victims' defend the accused Brian Donohue, The Star-Ledger, 10 May 2008 www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2008/05/in_smuggling_case_victims_defe.html [accessed 30 December 2010] Last September, U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement agents arrested two men and a woman from They say they long to return to
the hair salons -- even if they weren't paid for their long hours performing
intricate hair weaves. And worse, they say, their parents in Africa are
blaming them for the downfall of the three jailed suspects, who had been
sending money to the workers' families before the salons were shut. When she calls home, says one 21-year old
woman, her parents blame her for disappointing the village, then they hang up
on her. Trafficking of African women is
thriving Francois Tillinac, International Labour Organisation (ILO) News, May 10 2007 www.iol.co.za/news/africa/trafficking-of-african-women-is-thriving-1.352453 [accessed 14 November 2010] In January Italian police smashed
several human trafficking rings involving African and eastern European
females and netted some 800 suspects. Outside Children rescued from trafficking wait with their
nightmares to go home U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=53334 [accessed 30 December 2010] The wisp of a girl sits silently
to one side, staring at the scarred tips of her fingers. Probably no more
than five years old, Enyonam has just arrived at a center
for trafficked children in the Togolese capital, Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 5 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2009&country=7718 [accessed 31 December 2010] Combating Child Trafficking in Project Number: TGO028 www.care.org/careswork/projects/TGO028.asp? [accessed 30 December 2010] PROJECT DESCRIPTION - CARE's
COMBAT project joins in the elimination of child trafficking in Children mobilization against Child Trafficking At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 12 September 2011] Child trafficking takes alarming
proportions in WHY DO
THESE CHILDREN LEAVE THEIR FAMILY? - Poverty, ignorance, children not attending school, the lack of a legal
framing are the main factors which make children vulnerable. These children
are generally brought to Aguegue (in Child prostitution goes unchecked in Togo U.N. Integrated Regional Information Networks IRIN, archive.wn.com/2004/04/24/1400/p/e9/7a09c562f9d480.html [accessed 3 May 2012] Adjo says she never knew her real
parents. But she and Amivi hand over all the money they
earn to a woman whom they call “Mama”.
If the girls give this woman too little cash at the end of a shift,
they run the risk of a severe beating.
“At the end of every day I have to give the money to a woman called
‘Mama.’ If I don’t have enough money to give her, I get beaten,” Adjo said. Besides Adjo
and Amivi, there are several hundred other young
girls aged between nine and 15 who can openly be bought for sex in the
downtown area of Scale of African slavery revealed BBC News, 23 April 2004 news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3652021.stm [accessed 30 December 2010] COMPLICITY - Much of this trade in children
often has the tacit collaboration of the victims' own families where it is
seen not so much as criminal activity but as a way for a large family to
boost its poor income. Joseph's back
bears the scars of his beatings. The story of Joseph in Child Trafficking in Livina Nkiruka Agwunobi, 14
September 2004 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 12 September 2011] In HRW Report: Human Rights Watch, 1 April 2003 www.hrw.org/en/node/76184/section/1 [accessed 30 December 2010] SUMMARY - SUMMARY - Boys worked from as early as 5:00
a.m. until late at night, sometimes with hazardous equipment such as saws or
machetes. Some described conditions of bonded labor, whereby their trafficker
would pay for their journey to Child labor on cocoa farms 'tip of the iceberg' Human Rights Watch, www.hrw.org/en/news/2003/04/01/west-africa-stop-trafficking-child-labor [accessed 14 December 2010] Young Togolese boys told Human
Rights Watch they could not afford to pay school fees and so agreed to do
agricultural work in Building a network against child trafficking Reporter, Anti-Slavery International, July 2002 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 12 September 2011] Tens of thousands of children are
trafficked in In 1997, Anti-Slavery
International's partner in Ship Discovered With Human Cargo Orando Yanquoi,
ExpoTimes ( www.diastode.org/Nouvelles/usnews190.html [accessed 30 December 2010] 250 children have been discovered
aboard a ship in the Gabonese port. The children who were allegedly sold to
human traffickers by their parents or guardians were taken to According to Zardzo,
the children aboard the ship are between the ages of 9,10,and
11, who are able to help government in the relocation of their parents or
guardians. These children are said to
have hailed from the two West African countries of Child Trafficking in West and UN Economic and Social Council, Commission on Human Rights,
Sub-Commission on Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities,
Working Group on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, 24th Session, Geneva, 23 June
- 2 July 1999 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 12 September 2011] The effect of trafficking on
children is devastating. Children are in danger of being cut off from their
roots, losing contact with their own family, sometimes permanently, being
subjected to harsh working conditions, as well as physical, psychological and
sexual abuse. Research by our partners in Bénin in
1998, found that even where children are rescued, they are likely to
encounter feelings of alienation from their own family and culture and must
undergo a long and difficult task of reintegration. 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 - |
Human Trafficking in [Togo Street Children in [Togo] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Togo] [other countries]