Under the theme Victims’ Voices Lead the Way, on Friday, July 30, Wibena Impact, a non-profit organisation that empowers youth, women, and vulnerable persons in partnership with Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) organized a virtual event in line with the World Day against Trafficking in Persons. This year’s theme puts victims of human trafficking at the centre of the campaign and will highlight the importance of listening to and learning from survivors of human trafficking. The campaign also depicts survivors as key actors in the fight against human trafficking and focusses on the vital role they play in establishing effective measures to prevent this crime, identify and rescue victims and support them on their road to rehabilitation. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), in 2018 about 50,000 human trafficking victims were detected and reported by 148 countries. Female victims continue to be the primary targets where women make up 46% and girls 19% of all victims of trafficking. During the virtual event, Patience Iribagiza, the Founder and Executive Director of Afro Ark, a non-governmental organisation that aims at overcoming hardships facing women, youth and children through sustainable advocacy and capacity building for vulnerable populations in Rwanda and Africa also admitted that women are at high risk of being trafficked. “We work with teenage mothers and sex workers who can be easily drawn into sexual exploitation. They are more vulnerable due to their economic status, lack of skills and living in a life of violence. Some of them have been abandoned by their families when they got pregnant,” she said. “If a trafficker offers them a job to be taken to a place where they can get paid a stable amount, they will go without thinking twice. These traffickers can impregnate them or even sell them. We should raise awareness and play a role in protecting them.” Wanja Kimani, the Regional Director for Voices of the Oppressed Movement shared that she had been taken from Kenya to work in Saudi Arabia but eventually found out that she had actually been sold. In her distress, she was told to buy her freedom for KSh2000, the money she didn’t have, so that she would be sent back home. She said that it took the efforts of friends and media for her repatriation to be expedited, adding that people shouldn’t undermine human trafficking. “We tend to ignore human trafficking until it happens to someone we know. When I went to Saudi Arabia, I didn’t think that things would be bad. I was just hoping to get a good job and make money but it didn’t go as expected,” she said. “We all need to raise more awareness to people out there. Just that it hasn’t happened to them doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen.” Judie Kaberia, a trainer at Journalists for Human Rights (JHR), Kenya and a fellow of the Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime (GI-TOC) is the one who helped Kimani to go public and share her testimony. During the event, she declared that women are more vulnerable to trafficking than men due to cultural issues and how they are taken by the society, adding that men also have more respect than women due to cultural stereotypes which doesn’t expose them more to traffickers. She added, “Media has to play a big role in solving this issue. We have to tell stories of trafficked people, yes, but first we should make stories that tell people how they can prevent it before it can happen.” Naima Isa Ssebi, a Feminist Lawyer and an activist currently working with FIDA-Uganda, an association of women lawyers in Uganda called the audience to dig deeper on what causes human trafficking, raise awareness and work together to get traffickers to justice. She also urged people to be skeptical about companies that want to employ them abroad. “When you are offered a job, you should be careful. Check if the rules and conditions in the contract are clear. Find out about the company’s background, if it is registered or if it has existed in your country for a long time. If things are not clear, ask them questions,” she said. “When you are being trafficked, the way you are going to be employed is not clear in terms of work details, relationship between you and employer, the rights you have, and even the terms of contracts.” Naima also talked about domestic trafficking where people are being trafficked in their own countries. She declared that being blackmailed by employers at work, overworking, and being paid a salary that doesn’t correspond with your laborious work is trafficking. She added, “East African governments should set a wage of payment to employers like house maids and cleaners. If not, we are exploiting them to traffickers. Imagine if a house maid is being paid well and not violated! She can’t be exploited abroad. We also need to see how these traffickers can be prosecuted effectively.” Janvier Masisi, who describes himself as a global poet performed his poem, ‘My Home Does Not Care about Me’, which talks about his journey as a Congolese refugee in Rwanda. He called on other artists to write about human trafficking but also think about it broadly, adding that they should share their works to the world so that people can benefit from them.
