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/Namibia.htm
Namibia is a source,
transit, and destination country for children trafficked for the purposes of
forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Namibian children are trafficked
within the country for domestic servitude and forced agricultural labor,
cattle herding, vending, and commercial sexual exploitation. In some cases,
Namibian parents may have unwittingly sold their children into trafficking
conditions, including child prostitution. There have been reports of Namibian
children being trafficked to |
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CAUTION: The following
links have been culled from the web to illuminate the situation in 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 *** John Ekongo, New Era, allafrica.com/stories/200809240219.html [partially accessed
9 September 2011 - access restricted] "After 10
years of Interpol working group meetings on trafficking, I would argue that we
still know amazingly little. We have only a vague idea of the scale of the
crime and the way it is organized. We know fairly little about the
traffickers. We understand fragments of the recruitment process, we know a
little about how the money is moved but not enough to make an impact through
the seizing of assets." Kvigne said the gaps in understanding this problem could
be attributed to the diversity of the crime as it differs from one country to
another. Deputy Inspector
General for Administration at the Namibian Police, Major General James Tjivikua said trafficking has become a major concern in
the region. Tjivikua
added that the trafficking of persons especially women and children is
worsened by a number of factors, the leading cause being that of profit. The trafficking of human beings is a
multi-faceted area of crime incorporating crimes as diverse as trafficking
for forced labour into the agriculture sector or manufacturing industries,
trafficking in human organs and sexual services for promised better
opportunities. The clandestine nature
of human trafficking makes the scale of the illicit industry difficult to
assess and there are few reliable statistics on the number of persons
trafficked in the Southern African region. ***
ARCHIVES *** 2020 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices: Namibia 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/namibia/
[accessed 18 June
2021] PROHIBITION OF
FORCED OR COMPULSORY LABOR The government
investigated allegations of forced or compulsory labor and found no
prosecutable cases. PROHIBITION OF CHILD
LABOR AND MINIMUM AGE FOR EMPLOYMENT Children worked
herding goats and sheep on communal farms owned by their families. Children
also worked as child minders or domestic servants and in family businesses,
including informal “businesses” such as begging or street hawking. NGOs
reported rising commercial sexual exploitation of girls, particularly in
cities and in transit corridors (see section 6). Freedom House Country Report 2020 Edition freedomhouse.org/country/namibia/freedom-world/2020 [accessed 4 August
2020] G4. DO INDIVIDUALS
ENJOY EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY AND FREEDOM FROM ECONOMIC EXPLOITATION? The constitution
outlaws slavery and servitude, however Namibia lacks
minimum standards required to fully address human trafficking. Forced child
labor is rife in the agricultural sector and in people’s homes. In 2019 the
National Referral Mechanism (NRM), Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), and
the National Plan of Action on Gender-Based Violence took effect, all to
combat human trafficking. In August 2019, there were about 20 cases before
the courts and 15 cases subject to police investigation. In July, a woman was
convicted for trafficking a 15-year-old girl. In
spite of these positive developments, the 2018 Combating of Trafficking in
Persons Act is still pending. The inadequate funding of organizations
fighting this scourge poses further challenges. 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 22 April
2019] www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/ILAB/child_labor_reports/tda2017/ChildLaborReportBook.pdf [accessed 4 May
2020] Note:: Also check out this country’s report in the more recent edition DOL
Worst Forms of Child Labor [page 723] Children are
trafficked within Namibia for forced labor in agriculture, cattle herding,
domestic work, and commercial sexual exploitation. San children are
particularly vulnerable to forced labor on farms or in homes. (15; 3) Some
Angolan children are trafficked into Namibia for forced labor in cattle
herding. (4; 3) The government has not collected and published data on child
labor, including its worst forms, to inform policies and social programs. A Baseline
Assessment of Human Trafficking in Namibia
[PDF] Ministry of Gender Equality and Child Welfare MGECW, June 2009 sgdatabase.unwomen.org/uploads/Trafficking%20Study%20-%202009.pdf [accessed 2
September 2012] pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/PA00JBJQ.pdf [accessed 7 February
2018] EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY -- IV. Assessment Findings -- A. Incidence A small number of
cases of human trafficking were identified. However, it is possible that
there might be more cases. The difficulties in ascertaining the exact standing
of possible cases stemmed from two general factors: (1) limited time for
follow-up investigation where the available facts were inadequate; and, (2) conflation
of terminology and understanding of trafficking, smuggling and illegal migration. One of the
major difficulties in assessing potential trafficking cases is the lack of
definitional clarity about trafficking on the part of both lay- and
professional personnel. However, some cases
of human trafficking were found, including both labour exploitation and
sexual exploitation. Examples included: (1) a Zambian national trafficking
Zambian boys into Additional cases of
suspected or possible trafficking were also found. These were defined as fact
patterns that indicated that while trafficking was one possible scenario that
would explain or be consistent with the facts, other scenarios could not be
excluded as an explanation. Examples include trucks being stopped at border
posts and individuals being found hidden in the trucks. However, no reliable
information was available on the ultimate purpose for which the individuals
were being moved. This fact pattern could support a myriad of findings –
trafficking that was intercepted or human smuggling or a case of illegal
migration. As such, it could only be classified as a case of possible or
suspected trafficking. Concluding
Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) UN Convention on the
Rights of the Child, 28 January 1994 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/NAMIBIA.htm [accessed 23
February 2011] [10] Equally, the
Committee is concerned at the situation of children in especially difficult
circumstances, including the incidence of child labour,
particularly on farms and in the informal sector, and the number of children
dropping out of school. The Protection
Project - The www.protectionproject.org/human_rights_reports/report_documents/namibia.doc [accessed 2009] FORMS OF TRAFFICKING - There is little
evidence that trafficking for prostitution is widespread in ***
EARLIER EDITIONS OF SOME OF THE ABOVE *** Human Rights
Reports » 2005 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices 2009-2017.state.gov/j/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61584.htm [accessed 10
February 2020] TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS
– The law specifically prohibits trafficking in persons, and there were no
reports of persons being trafficked to, from, or within the country; however,
child prostitution occurred. The law also prohibits slavery, kidnapping, and
forced labor, including forced prostitution, child labor, and alien
smuggling. Traffickers were subject to fines of up to $166,000 (N$ one
million) or up to 50 years' imprisonment. The Department of Labor’s 2006 Findings on
the Worst Forms of Child Labor [PDF] www.dol.gov/ilab/programs/ocft/PDF/2006OCFTreport.pdf [accessed 9 December
2010] 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
- In 1999, approximately 15.5 percent of boys and 13.9 percent of girls ages
5 to 14 were working in Namibia. The majority of working children were found
in the agricultural sector (91.4 percent), followed by services (8.2
percent), manufacturing (0.4 percent), and other sectors (0.1 percent).
Children work in commercial and subsistence agriculture, the informal sector,
and domestic service. Children find self-employment in basket weaving,
traditional beer making, selling fruits and vegetables, barbering, milking
cows, and farming communal land. To support their households, children also
tend livestock, hunt, fish, and gather wild foods. Children from All
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