Human trafficking is one of the major concerns of the East African Community, MP Fatuma Ndangiza, Chairperson of the East African Legislative Assembly’s Committee on Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution, has told The New Times.
When members of her Committee conducted an oversight activity in February to assess the implementation of the six-member bloc’s peace and security strategy, they also looked into issues regarding human trafficking, illegal migration and smuggling of migrants in the region.
They observed that over the past decade, the unlawful act of transporting or coercing people in order to benefit from their work or service, typically in the form of forced labour or sexual exploitation "has become one of the most profitable activities of organized criminal groups worldwide.”
If no urgent measures are undertaken, lawmakers warned, the problem is likely to exacerbate.
"Human trafficking is a one the most profitable illegal activities of organized criminal groups worldwide and manipulates existing conflicts, humanitarian disasters and associated vulnerabilities of the people in situations of conflict,” Ndangiza told The New Times.
"It remains a global concern and a threat to peace and security in the EAC. Enhancing measures to combat human trafficking, illegal migration and smuggling migrants in the region is one of the twenty three priority goals of the regional peace and security strategy.”
In November 2019, a rescued Rwandan victim recounted how, a year earlier, she was enticed by a trafficking agent in Kigali with promises of a Rwf300, 000 monthly salary at a supermarket in Kuwait but was later sold into slavery.
At the time, official figures indicated that 25 human trafficking victims were returned home that year, and 17 in the previous year.
Latest figures – with the highest frequency of victims being females – from the Rwanda Investigation Bureau’s Crime Research and Prevention Division indicate that in the last three fiscal years, 119 cases were investigated.
These involved 215 victims among whom 165 were females and 59 males.
According to the Institute for Security Studies report published on July 30, last year, 96 Ugandan women, mostly children and youth were stopped at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, in Nairobi, Kenya, in January, 2020 en-route to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for work opportunities.
Ndangiza said these girls, who lacked proper employment papers, were victims of a well-established human trafficking ring in EAC, based in Kenya and "operating under the guise of employment agencies.”
Extraction of human organs for sale
Official figures also indicate that victims of ages 18 to 30 years are more vulnerable, followed by those below 18 years.
In the last three fiscal years, 50 victims of human trafficking were repatriated from various countries in Asia and Africa, RIB spokesperson Thierry Murangira said.
As noted, 16 were repatriated between July 2020 and June 2021; 11 between July 2019 and June 2020; and 23 between July 2018 and June 2019.
"Human trafficking is a modern slavery where human beings especially women and children are traded for purposes of forced labour, forced marriage, sexual slavery or commercial sexual exploitation or extraction of organs or tissues and can occur within a country or transnationally. It is inhuman injustice and a crime,” Ndangiza said.
The most known forms of exploitation in human trafficking are: sexual exploitation, domestic servitude, forced labour, "and extraction of human organs or tissues for sale.”
Murangira said: "Today human trafficking is transnational organized crime, wherein the crime starts from one country and end up in another country. It is a global phenomenon.”
It involves, he explained, recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control of another person for the purpose of exploitation.
Challenges abound
As regards challenges law enforcement encounters in the protracted battle to end the crime, Murangira said the nature of crime itself presents a challenge.
Being transnational organized crimes, he said, this involves more than one jurisdiction, and the more investigations require the involvement of more than one jurisdiction, the more the case presents a challenge which is based on relying on others’ cooperation to investigate and prosecute the crime.
"This gives chance to the perpetrator to escape,” he said.
However much efforts Rwanda has made in combatting the crime; including passing a new law in 2018, training law enforcement officers, and conducting awareness campaigns, Murangira noted, "there still are some remaining challenges.”
"These include lack of inter-states or security organs cooperation which sometimes is based on political will of countries of transit and destinations of trafficked persons.”
Lack of inter-states cooperation, he noted, affects effective detecting and identification of perpetrators and victims.
Another major issue is based on assistance to repatriated victims for certain period of time due to limited budgets of the institutions in charge of investigation and rehabilitations of the victims of human trafficking.
Murangira added: "This may cause revictimization since pull and push factors have not been addressed properly. Additionally, victims also sometimes do not cooperate with law enforcement, and this also hampers detection and investigations.”
Regional lawmakers have recommended that, among others, partner states enhance cooperation and negotiate diplomatic cooperation agreements with destination countries of trafficking for purposes of tracing the trafficked victims.
They also recommended that countries integrate counter-trafficking policies into their national legislation and develop guidelines to regulate employment companies for jobs abroad.
Develop mutually agreeable employment contracts
Ndangiza insisted on the importance of enhancing bilateral negotiations with destination country governments including on the release and repatriation of migrant workers exploited by employers abroad "as well as developing employment contracts that are mutually agreeable.”
Her comments come at a time when Rwanda is looking to send more than 600 graduates in the tourism and hospitality industry to work at the FIFA World Cup in Qatar in December 2022. This is part of a five-year deal signed between a local campus, the University of Tourism, Technology and Business Studies (UTB) and one of the premier professional training institutes in Qatar, Inspire Management Training Centre.
Aware of the concern of human trafficking and other abuses that workers from Rwanda and the region face after being deceived into travelling abroad in search for better job opportunities, Zulfat Mukarubega, the founder of UTB, engaged the government through the Rwandan Embassy in Qatar so that measures be taken to ensure no Rwandan’s rights are abused.
Mukarubega said: "I considered all that and decided that there is nothing I will do without involving our authorities in the entire process. The government, I realized, also had similar concerns and was willing to help.
"The Rwandan embassy in Qatar will have its staff following up on our workers. They will check on things such as how do they work; salary; whether they are doing what they went to do; how they live, and so on.”
Amb Ndangiza said human trafficking is a "complex and lucrative activity involving criminal groups” and a sophisticated network of syndicates.
Holistic approach and strong political will
As such, she noted, addressing the vice requires a holistic approach and a strong political will at the highest level to initiate, coordinate and enforce policies, legislation and collective efforts to comprehensively address human trafficking.
"Governments in the EAC region should commit to collaborate in fighting human trafficking as well as engage key stakeholders such as the police, immigration, prosecutors, private sector, civil society including youth and women organizations, teachers, media and cross border communities. This would deepen understanding of the complexity of the issue, enhance ownership and build a more effective anti- trafficking strategy,” Ndangiza said.
"There is urgent need to enact specific stringent legislation to punish human trafficking.”
Rwanda enhanced its legal mechanism to deter the crime in the 2012 organic law, where offences related to human trafficking were criminalized.
Six years later, in 2018, this law was replaced by a new one relating to the prevention, suppression and punishment of trafficking in persons and exploitation of others.
Murangira said: "The old law was limited to punishing trafficking in persons and exploitation of others while the new law has brought the additional approach of prevention and suppression of trafficking in persons and exploitation of others.
"Articles nine to 15 of this law have in fact focused on prevention of trafficking in persons, protection of and assistance to the victim. The new law has also imposed stiff or severe penalties compared to the old law.”
According to the new law, anyone convicted of trafficking in persons is liable to imprisonment for a term of not less than 10 years and not more than 15 years and a fine of not less than Rwf10 million and not more than Rwf15 million.
Article 18 of the new law states that: "If the offence is transnational in nature, the penalty is imprisonment for a term of not less than twenty (20) years and not more than twenty five (25) years and a fine of not less than twenty million ( 20,000,000) and not more than twenty five million (25,000,000) Rwandan francs.”
Besides the new law, RIB’s counter trafficking measures include establishment of counter human trafficking unit, awareness campaigns, regional and international cooperation for information sharing, and enhancing capacities and capabilities of its investigators.
Ndangiza said it will also be important to strengthen national early warning mechanisms to detect, track and monitor emerging human trafficking trends and signals.
She added: "Increase efforts to investigate trafficking cases and prosecute alleged traffickers including allegations of officials’ complicity in tackling cases and prosecute and convict them. Increase budgets dedicated to anti-trafficking efforts.”
In 2016, law makers consulted before the regional parliament passed a bill on prevention and eradication of trafficking in persons.
Up to now, however, the improved Bill which targets, among other deterrent measures, to severely punish individuals and organisations that facilitate the crime, has not been assented to by regional leaders.