Human trafficking is a widespread global phenomenon in which people are trapped in exploitation and coercion against their will. This challenge has been widespread in Africa, where people were forcefully taken from their villages and sold to slave trader during the transatlantic trade. Slave dealers captured and transported people to Europe and other continents where they were held in servitude. However, the end of the Cold War marked the beginning of another tumultuous phase in Africa, characterized by regional conflicts and uprisings. These events led to the proliferation and aggravation of political and economic challenges, rendering populations vulnerable to exploitation. In recent years, the magnitude of human trafficking has soared significantly as armed uprisings, political unrest, and economic hardships expose populations to enslavement. Various human rights instruments, including the Slavery Convention (1926), the International Labor Organization agreement, and the Palermo Protocol, rank among the prominent global legal frameworks and treaties enacted to combat human trafficking.
Human Trafficking in Africa
Human trafficking is an age-old dynamic phenomenon triggered by various interlocking factors, forces, and processes. Generally, this challenge stems from issues and problems associated with the demand for exploitatively cheap labor and peoples’ need to satisfy their basic economic requirements for survival. In the post-colonial Africa, such internal factors as poverty, misrule, corruption, unemployment, and crises brought about by numerous episodes of wars exacerbated the citizens’ susceptibility to human trafficking. In this regard, an individual’s specific attributes, such as socioeconomic status, unemployment, education, and personal aspiration, significantly contributed to their likelihood of being trafficked.
History of Human Trafficking in Africa and How it Developed
Human trafficking in Africa is a centuries’ old problem which dates back to the pre-colonial period. Although slavery was endemic and existed within the structure of everyday life, the arrival of Arab and European explorers and traders marked the beginning of the forceful transportation of people from their continents to regions. For instance, in the Sub-Saharan Africa, Zanzibar is identified as East Africa’s main slave-trading seaport, through which an estimated 50, 000 slaves passed annually (Rhodes 165). In West Africa, people were commodified, sold as slaves, and transported to foreign lands where they were forced to work in plantations. The enslaved people were viewed as merchandize to be sold, bought, and exploited. However, the crisis of human trafficking has evolved over the years, particularly after the global efforts prohibiting slave trade. The challenge adopted a subtle outlook controlled by criminal organizations exploiting the vulnerabilities of the populations brought about by political and economic crises.
Political Instabilities and Conflicts
Traffickers also exploited the distinctly toxic political environment in Africa, which immensely contributed to endless instabilities, uprisings, and conflict situations. Jesperson contends that structural and perennial violence in Africa created entrenched poverty levels, pitying millions of people across the continent (4). Since individuals generally prefer living in politically stable countries, their attempt to flee the conflict, resultant deprivation and limited economic opportunities expose them to traffickers. For instance, human trafficking and people smuggling have increasingly become lucrative in Libya since 2014, following the collapse of the country’s sociopolitical order (Morana 23). In this regard, civil strife creates poverty, a growing civilian need to flee, and the rogue actors who exploit and benefit from the lawlessness. Therefore, Africa’s human trafficking can be primarily attributed to the perennial political instability and civil unrest as the root causes of the vice in the continent.
Additionally, post-conflict situations in which acute military fighting and activities are terminated through peace agreements or victory are often unstable and characterized by spontaneous violent eruptions. For instance, the intermittent and sporadic clashes between the militaries and rebels in countries such as Chad and Benin generate enormous numbers of internally displaced persons. Jesperson notes that the smugglers of people strategically target the vulnerable individuals fleeing from conflict areas and economically depressed countries (4). This migratory pattern is manifested by many people fleeing conflict, political violence, and post-unrest instabilities in countries such as Mali, Algeria, Gambia, Guinea, and Cote D’Ivoire. In Nigeria, smuggled people primarily originate from Edo State, a region that perennially faces political, territorial, economic, and security challenges (Jatto and Stanislas 118). Therefore, political conflict and violence is a major contributor to human trafficking in Africa.
In East Africa, the largest source of victims of human trafficking is Eritrea, where young men and women are fleeing from military conscription and political violence. Notably, the country has been simultaneously engaged in internal civil unrest and active military action with Ethiopia. Although this has been used to justify the mandatory national military service, it has morphed into an indefinite entrapment that condemns the high school graduates into forced labor, sexual exploitation, and physical abuse (Kibreab 123). From this perspective, the Eritrean National Service is often regarded as a modern form of slavery, and people fleeing the enslavement often landed in the hands of traffickers.
Economic Vulnerabilities and Official Corruption
The emergence and subsequent proliferation of human smuggling in Africa can also be linked to the systemic economic vulnerabilities of the populations. Among the prominent breeding grounds for exploitation and human trafficking is the economic situation of a country or a region and the available opportunities for the citizens to escape the economic crisis and despair. The desire for the people to emigrate into economically promising and favorable circumstances is exploited by criminals, who initially recruit the victims with their cooperation before applying coercive force. Toh and Jiang contend that this pursuit of prosperity is primarily fueled by the uncertainties of economic opportunities in the victims’ countries (12). This factor has been identified as the initial impetus for the casualties to fall prey to the traffickers. The economic factor also accelerates this vice since people in human trafficking feel that it is more lucrative than legitimate activities. For instance, the people trafficked across the Sahara through Libya to Europe often come from economically challenged countries and are taking the risk to go to well-off nations through any means.
Further, the prohibition of these illegal migration patterns creates organized criminal gangs who promise to facilitate the transition of the economic victims to wealthy nations. According to Cho, mainstream and subtle forms of corruptions are a remarkable push factor for human trafficking in Africa since it pushes people into the desperate attempt to escape from the current circumstances (4). In this regard, the levels of corruption and institutional effectiveness of the origin, destination, and transit countries are major factors, which have continually contributed to the proliferation of the crime. Cho notes that in the absence of corrupt regimes and functional governmental operations, the recruitment, provision of facilitating documents such as visas and permits, the eventual transportation, and border crossing is impossible (4). Therefore, economic vulnerabilities and corruption create trafficking incentives for the smugglers, the victims, and government officials of the destination, transit, and origin countries.
Tradition and Culture
Some traditions and cultural practices in Africa have significantly contributed to the crisis of human trafficking. Notably, customs such as male dominance, coercing young girls into ritual servitude, and viewing women as commodities and wealth have been identified as an underlying cause of human trafficking (Msuya 1). These practices are orchestrated for exploitative purposes, such as domestic work, sexual servitude, and enslavement into labor. In this regard, these cultures have consistently perpetuated human trafficking at different levels. For instance, in Western Africa, culturally acceptable customs such as the “slave to the gods” involve young women from the Ewe ethnic group, who are sent to serve as forced laborers in traditional shrines (Msuya 4). They are sexually exploited by the priests residing in those shrines. Therefore, some traditional customs and practices have significantly enhanced the practice of human trafficking in the continent.
Efforts to Resolve Human Trafficking in Africa and their Success and Failures
In recent years, the efforts to combat human trafficking in Africa have gained momentum as the problem’s awareness, and its detrimental impacts are highlighted. Among the notable interventions is the Stop the Traffik campaign, which seeks to disrupt the global human trafficking networks and modern slavery links by building resilient communities across the continent. Although this organization’s efforts strive to demolish the global trafficking web, its effectiveness has not been widely registered due to the strategy’s failure to address the root causes. Kiss and Zimmerman contend that the successful responses to human trafficking require targeted actions on the structural conditions and practices, which enable exploitation and subject people to limited abilities to alter their circumstances (2). For instance, although the Stop the Traffik’s option of raising awareness has effectively highlighted the severity of the problem, it does not address the causal factors, such as corruption, economic vulnerabilities, and political violence.
Similarly, effecting arrests and convictions of people involved in human trafficking could significantly discourage or break the network. However, this approach is also reactive and fails to address the underlying factors creating the crime. Bryant and Landman argue that although formulating stringent anti-trafficking legislation may significantly minimize the smuggling, radical and targeted interventions should focus on anchoring approaches such as entrenching political and economic stability and eliminating corruption (122). This perspective is underpinned by the relative of human trafficking in economically and politically stable counties. These interventions generate positive ripple effects, such as stimulating investments, reducing the structural and systemic inequalities, and promoting the overall wellbeing of the people. The established legal institutions and frameworks will enhance African countries’ ability to monitor and forestall the activities of organized criminal outfits, which perennially trigger civil unrest and other detrimental activities.
Theoretical Foundation for the Violation of Human Rights
In The Philosophy of Human Rights, Patrick Hayden enumerates various philosophical underpinnings through which smuggling people violate the tenets of human rights. For instance, he makes an explicit reference to John Stuart Mill’s utilitarianism on liberty, in which he asserts the inviolability of freedom as a fundamental human right. In this regard, trafficking infringes on this freedom at various stages of its perpetration since the victims are stripped of their liberties of movement and the unjustified subjection to torture, inhuman, punishment, and degrading treatment. This perspective is corroborated by Farrokhzad, who contends that the invasion and the subsequent subjugation of human dignity by traffickers through the suppression of the victims’ freedoms is the apex of human rights violation (132). Therefore, the claim of vanquishing the victim’s unassailable liberties is among the prominent reasons why the allegations of human rights abuses have been made.
Additionally, the utilization of threats, coercion, deception, or fraud for the sole purposes of economic or sexual exploitation is a distinct violation of the victims’ rights. Notably, this crime is associated with practices such as forced labor, debt bondage, forced marriages, and the breaching of the victims’ bodily integrity. From this perspective, traffickers treat the smuggled people like commodities, grossly violating their intrinsic civil liberties and rights. These egregious crimes are explicitly outlined by the Palermo Protocol, which encompasses offenses such as sexual exploitation, abusive treatment, and involuntary servitude.
Recommendations for Policy Changes
Although various policies have been formulated and implemented to combat human trafficking, there is need to enact robust and innovative strategies that addresses the root causes of the challenge. For instance, international organizations can demand that the host governments obtain certifications indicating their compliance with the established international laws. This can be an effective counter-trafficking measure since it would impose stringent and punitive proposals on destination countries, thereby eliminating the demand and market for trafficked persons. Moreover, this approach is significantly easier to implement than addressing the push factors that increase peoples’ vulnerabilities. Therefore, the existing policies should be modified to adopt more demand side-oriented measures to be implemented by the host countries.
Conclusion
Human trafficking is a major global crisis which disproportionately affects the African continent. Notably, the continent is a significant source, transit corridor, and destination of smuggled people. Although the crisis can be attributed to the events surrounding the end of the Cold War, pre-colonial and post-colonial Africa have witnessed the proliferation of human trafficking from the continent. The major factors which exacerbate Africa’s human trafficking crisis include political and economic instabilities, structural corruption, traditional practices, and failures of the governance systems. Although various interventions have been implemented to stop this crisis, they have not been significantly effective, necessitating the deployment of approaches that address the underlying factors.
Works Cited
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