Nestlé advances child labor battle plan

Nestlé advances child labor battle plan:
An independent investigation into Nestlé's cocoa supply chain has found numerous child labor violations and kickstarted an ambitious plan to eventually eradicate forced labor and child labor in its production cycle.
The study was carried out by the Fair Labor Association with Nestlé's support.
"Our investigation of Nestlé's cocoa supply chain represents the first time a multinational chocolate producer has allowed its procurement system to be completely traced and assessed. For too long child labor in cocoa production has been everybody's problem and therefore nobody's responsibility," said FLA President Auret van Heerden.
It means Nestlé is the first chocolate-maker to comprehensively map its cocoa supply chain – and can work on identifying problems areas, training and educating workers and taking action against child labor violations.
The FLA investigation found violations of Nestlé's own supplier code, including excessive hours and unpaid workers. It also found 72 percent of injuries were from workers using machetes.
Read the FLA-Nestle report
But child labor remained the primary concern for the FLA which said there were systemic and cultural challenges to overcome in Ivory Coast.
Jose Lopez, Nestlé vice president of operations, told CNN: "There is no way, that long term, a company like ours can accept a situation like this. So it's a matter of how fast, how well, and how many people have to participate in getting these sorts of problems behind us.
"We are determined to make real impact and hopefully also to be used as a lighthouse to show others that it's just a matter of getting started."
He added: "My sense is that what we want to do here is to prove that it can happen. We will work with the World Cocoa Foundation and be in schools, we will work with International Cocoa Initiative and gather the cooperatives and put people there ... to give training on the farmers. We will work with the government on the action plan, we will work with the certifiers.
"It is true that what is new is purely an expression of the will to assemble everybody, to break down these silos and to get the action moving, instead of each one of us trying to give his own interpretation and his own answer."
The FLA recommended Nestlé tell every person in its supply chain about the company's code of practice which bans child labor, and make sure people are trained and expected to uphold the code.
The FLA also said Nestlé has developed a strategy to improve practices by its Ivorian workers, including producing an illustrated guide to the supplier code by October and, in the longer term, train key suppliers to try to create a workforce dedicated to protecting children.
Van Heerden said: "By inviting FLA to completely map and document its cocoa supply chain, consumers will have the complete picture they need to hold Nestlé, the largest food company in the world, accountable for where its cocoa comes from ...
"Now that its supply chain has been mapped, Nestlé will be held accountable for the kind of sustainable and comprehensive changes that ensure a future of responsibly-sourced, code-compliant cocoa."

Ferrero sets date to end cocoa slavery - The CNN Freedom Project: Ending Modern-Day Slavery - CNN.com Blogs

http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/2012/04/20/ferrero-sets-date-to-end-cocoa-slavery/
Source: CNN.com Blogs
April 20th, 2012
Chocolate maker Ferrero has pledged to eradicate slavery from farms where it sources its cocoa by 2020, as part of a growing movement by the multi-billion dollar industry to clean up its supply chains.

The Italian company, which produces Ferrero Rocher chocolates, Nutella spread and Kinder eggs, follows Nestle and Hershey as the third major chocolate manufacturer to announce new anti-slavery moves since September.

It says it will eradicate child labor and forced adult labor from cocoa plantations it uses by 2020, verified by “independent and credible” third parties. Also, it says it will publish a more detailed progress report this summer and promises improved communication to customers.

Up to 75% of the world’s cocoa beans are grown in small farms in West Africa. In the Ivory Coast alone, there are an estimated 200,000 children working the fields, many against their will, to create chocolate enjoyed around the world. Many of the children don’t even know what chocolate is.

In January, CNN highlighted the plight of the child labor in the Ivory Coast in a documentary, “Chocolate’s Child Slaves”, by correspondent David McKenzie.

A statement from Ferrero said its new goals were made “in the light of the need for transparency in the cocoa sector.”

The industry’s regulation over cocoa farms is largely self-regulated. Critics say progress is too slow.

Read all stories about Chocolate's Child Slaves

NGO Stop the Traffik, which worked with CNN on its documentary, welcomed Ferrero’s move as a “sweet deal” for children doing “back-breaking work”. 

“Ferrero is the first global chocolate company to explicitly state they will fulfill the promise the chocolate industry made collectively in 2001 to eliminate the trafficking of children in their supply chain. Together with Mars, who have promised 100% certified chocolate by 2020, Ferrero is the only other chocolate company to have made comprehensive commitments towards their entiry cocoa supply chain.

“This individual acceptance of responsibility, coupled with a commitment to report on progress each year, should be an example to the other major chocolate companies, such as Nestlé, Kraft/Cadbury, and Hershey’s, to follow suit.”

The London-based NGO called on Ferrero to put labels on wrappers of its products so customers would know they were untainted by slavery.

A statement added: “2020 is still a long way away, and Stop the Traffik will be monitoring Ferrero’s progress.”

More than 10 years ago, two U.S. lawmakers took action to stop child labor in the industry. The Harkin-Engel Protocol, also known as the Cocoa Protocol, was signed into law on September 19, 2001.

But manufacturers raised concerns and a compromise was reached that required chocolate companies to voluntarily certify they were stopping the practice of child labor. The certification process would not involve labeling products "child-labor-free," as initially proposed.

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GHANA: Efforts to reduce child labour on cocoa plantations beginning to pay off

Published on Sep 23, 2011 - 11:30:41 AM

Source: IRIN News

ACCRA, 23 September 2011 (IRIN) - Tens of thousands of children work on Ghana's cocoa plantations - often doing hazardous tasks when they should be at school - but change is coming.

Andrew Tagoe of the Ghana Agricultural Workers Union, speaking at a workshop organized by the International Labour Organization (ILO) earlier this year, said 186,000 children worked on Ghana's cocoa farms. Apart from heavy lifting, they work with potentially dangerous chemicals or tools, are often unsupervised and are not given protective clothing.

But the government says it is making progress and "rescued" 6,100 children from cocoa farms in the past year and supported them to return to school.

Efforts to curb child labour on cocoa farms began in 2001 with the Harkin-Engel Protocol - an agreement, signed by cocoa and chocolate companies, to source cocoa grown and processed according to ILO child labour standards. While progress was initially criticized as too slow, the government and NGOs say tangible success can now be seen in Ghana.

A national programme for the elimination of the worst forms of child labour in cocoa production was launched in 2006, with results now apparent, according to Sam Atoquaye Quaye, Ghana's child labour monitoring system coordinator with the programme. He said under this programme 12,000 children have been taken off cocoa farms, enrolled in school and provided with school supplies - over half of them in the last year. "Ghana is still not child labour free… But we have come far."

The programme also educates parents and communities about appropriate tasks for children and the importance of schooling. "Community child protection committees" - teams of people who travel to cocoa-producing areas - are employed to spread the message, Quaye said. As 84 percent of children working on cocoa farms in Ghana live with their parents and another 14 percent with relatives, working with families is necessary.

Pressure exerted through international cocoa buyers appears to have been a factor in encouraging the government to take action. "Ghana's cocoa is exported and so it is important to establish that cocoa produced from Ghana is not from child labour," Quaye said, adding there were still permissible activities children could undertake on farms outside of school hours and that a framework had been established to distinguish between these activities and dangerous work which is not allowed.

Tony Lass, executive director of the non-profit International Cocoa Initiative (ICI), pointed to the successes in Ghana as a result of NGOs, cocoa and chocolate companies, and government working together. He said that while figures were hard to pin down it was estimated that "collective efforts have helped over one million children in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire". Ghana is the world's second largest cocoa producer, after Côte d'Ivoire.

Qualified success

The government's community education programme has certainly reached some farmers. "I have attended many workshops on child labour," said G. C. K. Boa, a cocoa farmer in Twifo Praso, central Ghana. "I don't even want to send a child to buy cigarettes for me," he said, adding that all his children were in school.

However, Vincent Frimpong Manu, Ghana's cocoa programme manager for the fair trade organization West Africa Fair Fruit, said that while gains have been made, he was cautious about claims of success. Just because a child is enrolled in school does not necessarily mean they are not working on a cocoa farm, he said. Although there was now a high level of awareness about the importance of sending children to school, if the parents still depended on their child for labour "there may be situations where the child is enrolled in school but attendance is quite low," he added.

Lass agreed that while there was a high level of awareness about stopping hazardous forms of child labour - and some communities had even passed their own by-laws banning it - he said that awareness did not always solve the problem on its own.

Marisa Yoneyama from the World Cocoa Foundation, an NGO made up of companies involved in cocoa and chocolate industries, pointed out that root causes of child labour needed to be addressed as well. "Child labour is usually a symptom of wider problems, including poverty," she said.

Infrastructure helps

Although many of the same organizations operate in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire and the Harkin-Engel Protocol applies to both, Lass said unrest in Côte d'Ivoire over the years had slowed progress, making it difficult for NGOs to operate.

The relatively well-developed infrastructure in Ghana also aids efforts to improve life on cocoa farms. Yoneyama pointed to CocoaLink - a text message service which sends information to help farmers increase yields and lift safety standards via SMS - as an example of a programme that could only work in a nation with a well-functioning mobile phone infrastructure.

Another difference is Ghana's centralized marketing system which is good for business, making it easier for farmers to sell their produce and for buyers to be assured of high quality cocoa beans, according to Lass.

Despite the difficulties in Côte d'Ivoire, Lass emphasized that gains have still been made, and continue to be made, in both countries.

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• Child labour: the tobacco industry's smoking gun | Global development | guardian.co.uk (trafficking-monitor.blogspot.com)
• 'Child labour ban seems to remain on paper' (trafficking-monitor.blogspot.com)
• Guinea-Mauritania: Worst forms of child labour still widespread (yubanet.com)
• Abuses in Ghana's fishing industry highlighted on anti-slavery day - The Irish Times - Tue, Aug 23, 2011 (trafficking-monitor.blogspot.com)

Critics: Chocolate financing Ivory Coast's Gbagbo

By MICHELLE FAUL, Associated Press

Associated Press February 14, 2011 07:29 AM Copyright Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Monday, February 14, 2011

Schalk van Zuydam / AP

FILE - In this June 30, 2005 file photo, children living in a cocoa producing village walk back from the fields carrying wood and food stuff on their heads on the outskirts of the town of Oume, Ivory Coast. 

This February 14, 2011, activists say you may want to think twice before biting into a piece of Valentine's Day chocolate. Some of the cocoa in many Valentine's Day chocolates probably came from Ivory Coast, where cocoa revenues are helping the incumbent leader cling to power despite losing an election and where years of campaigning have done little to affect a longstanding problem of child labour.

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(02-14) 07:29 PST JOHANNESBURG, (AP) --
Some of the cocoa in that Valentine's Day chocolate probably came from a West African country where the man in power for a decade is still clinging to office. And activists say consumers might also think twice if they knew unpaid 5-year-olds helped produce it.

This year human rights advocates are harnessing the political crisis in Ivory Coast, the world's largest cocoa producer, to add momentum to an ongoing campaign to force the world's chocolate makers to improve their labor practices.

Supporters of the internationally recognized winner of Ivory Coast's election also have pushed for a cocoa ban in an effort to financially strangle incumbent leader Laurent Gbagbo, who the U.N. says lost the November election.

"It's clear that the taxes that come from cocoa go directly to keeping Gbagbo in power. That's why we called for an export ban and it seems to be working," said Patrick Achi, spokesman for internationally recognized winner Alassane Ouattara, who is now trying to run the country from a hotel.

Years of campaigning by "fair trade" consumers already have forced chocolate makers to sign onto to agreements to help clean up the cocoa supply chain. But little has changed in the decade since the U.S. Congress passed the Harkin-Engel Protocol to introduce a "no child slavery" label for chocolate marketed in the United States.

Some 1.8 million children aged 5 to 17 years work on cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana, according to the fourth annual report produced by Tulane University under contract to the U.S. Department of Labor to monitor progress in the protocol.

The report says 40 percent of the 820,000 children working in cocoa in Ivory Coast are not enrolled in school, and only about 5 percent of the Ivorian children are paid for their work.

"These companies are getting incredible profits while often the farmers are getting really pennies," said Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies, a Washington-based think tank.

Campaigns recently have begun targeting The Hershey Company because it is the only major chocolate producer in the world that hasn't made a commitment to use certified cocoa, activists say. Hershey's, though, says it is working to improve lives in local communities.

"Our focus is on-the-ground programs that promote sustainable livelihoods in West Africa," said Hershey's spokesman Kirk Saville. "Hershey's support for cocoa communities goes back more than 50 years. We have helped to develop more productive agriculture practices, to build educational and community resources and to eliminate exploitative labor practices."

But the Tulane University report on child labor in cocoa farms in Ivory Coast and Ghana found chocolate makers have reached less than 4 percent of cocoa-growing communities in Ivory Coast and less than 14 percent of communities in Ghana.

"The industry has invested far more in programs in Ghana, where the worst abuses are not quite as prevalent as in the Ivory Coast," said Timothy Newman, campaigns director of the Washington D.C.-based

International Labor Rights Forum.
Newman also said children from the neighboring countries of Mali and Burkina Faso also continue to be trafficked to Ivorian farms, where 40 percent of the world's cocoa is produced.

Ivorian government statistics indicate that more than 37,000 children are forced to work, according to the U.N. International Labor Organization's Alexandre Soho, senior program officer for Africa on the elimination of child labor.

The industry says it has spent more than $75 million to support implementation of a cocoa certification system. However, the Tulane study found partners on the ground received only $5.5 million between 2001 and 2009, and that those working in Ivory Coast received only $1.2 million from the industry.

Activists argue that the answer is simple: pay farmers more and they will be able to afford to send their kids to school instead of to work. Most children are put to work on small family plots, often wielding dangerous tools like machetes and using hazardous substances such as insecticides.

But critics say that a chocolate boycott only hurts the farmers and their families, who are trying to make a living even if the wages are not "fair trade" ones.

"The essential problem from the very beginning, was that the large chocolate companies were hiding behind the Harkin-Engel Protocol which is an entirely voluntary agreement with no enforcement mechanism. As a result, they have been able to continually drag their feet in taking responsibility for labor rights abuses in their own cocoa supply chains," Newman said.

"Many of the initiatives developed under this process have never addressed the critical underlying issues that lead to egregious labor rights abuses like the low prices paid to cocoa farmers for their beans and the lack of negotiating power that small-scale farmers have in the global chocolate supply chain. Problems like these continue to fuel abuse."
___
Associated Press writer Marco Chown Oved contributed to this report from Abidjan, Ivory Coast.
___
Online:
Tulane University's reports on child labor in cocoa production: www.childlabor-payson.org/

The International Labor Rights Forum's cocoa campaign:
www.laborrights.org/stop-child-labor/cocoa-campaign

Hershey's: www.thehersheycompany.com

Source:  sfgate.com
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2011/02/14/international/i054900S88.DTL#ixzz1EKtvS4WP

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• Hershey Says It Doesn't Know About Your Campaign (news.change.org)
• Ivory Coast cocoa farmers protest (bbc.co.uk)

Tyler Paper Censors Truth About Chocolate Industry Abuse | Change.org News

by Tim Newman · February 15, 2011

Valentine's Day is an opportunity for many people to learn more about how their chocolate is produced. That impulse is what motivated Leigh Vickery to write an article about the well-documented and continued use of forced, trafficked and child labor in the cocoa industry in West Africa. The article was published by Tyler Paper in Texas, but soon after it was posted, the management made the decision to remove Leigh's piece.

After censoring Leigh's article, the newspaper posted a new one by Business Editor Casey Murphy that sounds more like industry talking points than actual journalism. As evidence that labor rights are protected in the cocoa industry, Murphy quotes one company representative who states simply, "We're very comfortable with the vendors we get our chocolate from" without providing any actual evidence of suppliers' efforts to address labor rights violations. The company representative states that chocolate is "just a token of love." Unfortunately, every report on labor rights conditions in West Africa confirms that chocolate is actually linked to continued exploitation of workers.

For example, the U.S. Department of Labor cites cocoa from five different West African countries as tainted by child and forced labor. In fact, cocoa from the Ivory Coast and Nigeria is on a list from the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) of products that government contractors must prove are not produced by forced or child labor due to the pervasive existence of these abuses in the region that produces the vast majority of the world's cocoa. Additional annual reports from both DOL and the State Department also highlight child labor and trafficking connected to the primary ingredient in chocolate.

The most extensive independent analysis of labor rights abuses on cocoa farms in West Africa and industry efforts to address the exploitation also contradicts Murphy's article. Tulane University's Payson Center for International Development reported in 2009 that one million children in the Ivory Coast and Ghana work in the cocoa industry and that the voluntary industry protocol cited by Murphy as evidence that the industry is dealing with this abuse has many critical aspects that have not been implemented in the ten years since the agreement was signed and that the efforts supported by companies do not sufficiently remediate forced labor and trafficking.

Unfortunately, the evidence is overwhelming that abuses continue and the efforts of the broader chocolate industry have not done enough. As Leigh's article notes, there are companies that are working more proactively to end these abuses and those companies should be acknowledged for their efforts. However, consumers have a right to know which companies are not stepping up to the plate to end such severe human rights violations.

While Tyler Paper decided to censor Leigh's article that highlighted the reality behind chocolate in favor of corporate propaganda, the International Labor Rights Forum worked with Leigh to make her article available on its blog. This might make a good temporary solution, but the bigger question is Tyler Paper's commitment to journalistic integrity. Additionally, Tyler Paper's actions fit in to a broader context where those in power have continuously attempted to silence those who expose abuse in the cocoa industry. In the Ivory Coast, journalist Guy-Andre Kieffer disappeared in 2004 while investigating corruption in the cocoa industry. This past summer, three Ivorian journalists ended up in jail after they published an article about a government probe into ongoing mismanagement and corruption in their country's cocoa industry.

The good news is that the three journalists jailed in the Ivory Coast in July 2010 were released, in part due to the international pressure from Change.org readers who took action. Those journalists ended up on our list of Human Trafficking Heroes of 2010. Let's use the collective strength we've exerted before to stand up for those who speak out against child labor and trafficking once again.

Contact Tyler Paper now to tell its management that we will not support their censorship of labor rights abuses in the cocoa industry.
Photo credit: GiantsFanatic

Tim Newman is a campaigns assistant at the International Labor Rights Forum. He also works on the Stop Firestone campaign.

RELATED PETITION

Tell the Tyler Paper to Stop Censoring Abuse in the Chocolate Industry

Tyler Paper Censors Truth About Chocolate Industry Abuse | Change.org News

Related articles

• Critics: Chocolate financing Ivory Coast's Gbagbo (sfgate.com)

Studies recently linked to Trafficking Monitor

Image via WikipediaCheck out the following links to studies on human trafficking and forced labor.

Florida State Univ. CAHR: Florida Strategic Plan on Human Trafficking. 2010

The Texas Human Trafficking Prevention Task Force REPORT t o t h e Te x a s L e g i s l a t u r e • J a n u a r y 2 0 11

Modern Slavery in Our Midst: A Human Rights Report on Ending Human Trafficking in Oregon June 2010

OSCE: COMBATING TRAFFICKING AS MODERN-DAY SLAVERY: A MATTER OF RIGHTS, FREEDOMS AND SECURITY

Payson Center, Univ Tulane - Fourth Annual Report:Oversight of Public and Private Initiatives to Eliminate the Worst Forms of Child Labor in the Cocoa Sector in Cote d'Ivoire and Ghana. Sept. 2010

Jonathan Todres:Moving Upstream: The Merits of a Public Health Law Approach to Human Trafficking . 2011

CEOP:Strategic Threat Assessment Child Trafficking in the UK 2010  
[Ninth article down the page]

The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Groups: Wrong kind of victim? One year on: an analysis of UK measures to protect trafficked persons. June 2010

Fiona David: Labour trafficking. Nov. 10. Australian Institute of Criminology

UN.GIFT Catalogue

Image by Getty Images via @daylifeUN.Gift's catalog of useful themes, including expert initiatives, reports, and publications, and much more.
Well worth a visit.

Côte d’Ivoire/Nigeria: Combat Trafficking for Prostitution | Human Rights Watch

Image via Wikipedia

From Human Rights Watch

Networks Freely Move Women, Girls Across West Africa

August 26, 2010

These women and girls were sold dreams of migrating to better their lives, but then found themselves in a personal hell. The Ivorian and Nigerian authorities need to find and prosecute the perpetrators, work with regional neighbors to shut down their operations, and do more to protect the victims.

Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher

(Dakar) - Authorities in Côte d'Ivoire and Nigeria should investigate and close down networks that traffic Nigerian women and girls to Côte d'Ivoire for forced prostitution, Human Rights Watch said today. Human Rights Watch also called for collaboration among regional neighbors to improve border efforts to combat trafficking.

In July 2010, Human Rights Watch traveled to three Ivorian towns and met with groups totaling around 30 Nigerian women believed to have been trafficked for prostitution. Eight victims were interviewed individually. Scores of similar cases involving Nigerian women and girls were documented by interviews with Ivorian officials, United Nations personnel, and Nigerian embassy staff. Many victims were either between the ages of 15 and 17 or had been minors when brought to Côte d'Ivoire.

"These women and girls were sold dreams of migrating to better their lives, but then found themselves in a personal hell," said Corinne Dufka, senior West Africa researcher at Human Rights Watch. "The Ivorian and Nigerian authorities need to find and prosecute the perpetrators, work with regional neighbors to shut down their operations, and do more to protect the victims."

In two small towns in central Côte d'Ivoire, with populations of about 40,000 and 50,000, respectively, Human Rights Watch documented the presence of five separate brothels of Nigerian women and girls. A gendarme in one of the towns estimated that at least 100 Nigerian women were working there as prostitutes. Human Rights Watch investigations indicated that the majority of them were likely to have been trafficked.

Deceived into Prostitution
All of the women and girls interviewed by Human Rights Watch described being deceived into migrating with promises of work as apprentice hairdressers or tailors, or to work in other businesses elsewhere in West Africa or in Europe. They said that Nigerian women recruited and transported them overland through Benin, Togo, Ghana, and Burkina Faso. The majority of victims told both Human Rights Watch and the Nigerian embassy that they came from Delta and Edo States in southern Nigeria.

Nigerian embassy staff in Abidjan told Human Rights Watch that they have repatriated scores of women trafficked for prostitution, including dozens this year alone, and noted that the problem is on the rise.

Ruth (not her real name), a 27-year-old Nigerian woman trafficked for prostitution in central Côte d'Ivoire, said:

"I came here six years ago with five other girls from Delta State. The woman who brought us told me that she sold wrappers [fabric used as a skirt] in Côte d'Ivoire. I thought it was a good opportunity for me to learn a business, so I left Nigeria and went with her. The second day after we arrived, she handed us each a condom and I thought, What is this? She said, ‘This is what you are going to do.' What could I do? I had nobody backing me ... so I did it."

An 18-year-old Nigerian woman told Human Rights Watch that the woman who trafficked her two years ago enticed her to leave Nigeria with promises to learn to be a hairdresser. Another young woman, from Edo State, described her own experience:

"She said I was going to sell clothes in a boutique in Liberia, but took me [to Côte d'Ivoire] and every night I have to do this.... Just a thousand [CFA francs] each man. I have been here for two years. I don't like it. I want to leave."

Debt Bondage
Within days of arrival in Côte d'Ivoire, the traffickers demanded that the women and girls engage in prostitution to pay off an exorbitant "debt" of generally 1.5 to 2 million CFA francs (US$3,000 to $4,000), though the cost of overland transportation to Côte d'Ivoire is only roughly 100,000 CFA ($200). This amounts to debt bondage, a practice similar to slavery under the 1956 United Nations Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery.

Several victims said they had not yet been able to pay off their "debt" despite engaging in sex work in Côte d'Ivoire for between two and six years, and despite having sex with up to 30 men a night. Nigerian women and girls in central Côte d'Ivoire said that they receive 1,000 CFA francs ($2) per act, or 5,000 CFA francs ($10) for the night.

"You have to work so hard," Ruth said. "In one night, you have to have sex with 15, 20, even 30 men. You work until the sun comes up and you cannot even open your eyes. Some of the girls are small, less than 18 years old. They think they are coming for something else. They were not doing this kind of work [prostitution] in Nigeria. One girl, she is so small, she is only 16. This is not the work for a small girl."

Ivorian, UN, and Nigerian officials described to Human Rights Watch an incident in July 2010 in which three 17-year-old Nigerians who refused to engage in sex work after being trafficked were locked in a room and denied food for three days. They finally escaped, went to the local police, and were repatriated by the Nigerian embassy.

All the victims Human Rights Watch interviewed said they wanted to leave Côte d'Ivoire and the sex trade, but felt they had no escape because of the perceived consequences of failing to pay the debt.

"We can't leave," said Faith (not her real name), an 18-year-old Nigerian woman trafficked for prostitution in Central Côte d'Ivoire. "The girls are scared."

The women said repeatedly that "bad things" would happen to them or their families if they escaped, but were too afraid to provide further details regarding the precise threats or the person who would hurt them. Further investigation needs to be undertaken by Ivorian and Nigerian authorities to determine the extent of the trafficking operation, the threats being made, and ways to protect the victims, Human Rights Watch said.

Failure to Investigate, Prosecute Traffickers
Diplomats and international aid agency officials told Human Rights Watch that Ivorian authorities have rarely conducted in-depth investigations into trafficking for prostitution or successfully prosecuted traffickers. The United States State Department's 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report identified a single such prosecution that year.

The central impediments to investigation and prosecution appear to be an ineffective legal framework and a lack of will, or interest in the cases, on the part of Ivorian authorities, Human Rights Watch said. Côte d'Ivoire has not signed the UN Trafficking Protocol and also lacks domestic legislation that specifically criminalizes trafficking. Human Rights Watch called on the Ivorian government to sign and ratify the UN Trafficking Protocol without delay and pass a draft domestic anti-trafficking law, currently under consideration, that is in harmony with international standards.

Ivorian authorities interviewed by Human Rights Watch were aware of the presence of Nigerian prostitutes and the possibility that they had been trafficked, but seemed to have done little to determine how the young women had ended up in urban brothels or to question those appearing to be running them.

The Nigerian government has passed anti-trafficking legislation in accordance with international law and has provided significant funding to domestic law enforcement and anti-trafficking bodies to implement these efforts. However, Côte d'Ivoire is not a central focus of Nigerian anti-trafficking efforts, which concentrate more on trafficking to other West African countries or to Europe or the United States.

"Nigerian and Ivorian authorities must more proactively combat those who prey on vulnerable girls and women," Dufka said. "Many more will be trafficked for prostitution if governments fail to take robust action."

Recommended Actions

To Ivorian authorities:

• Ensure that the current draft anti-trafficking law provides a framework for combating trafficking, including trafficking for the purpose of prostitution, in accordance with international standards, and then pass the law without delay.
• Sign and ratify the UN Trafficking Protocol.
• Conduct a thorough and comprehensive national investigation into the trafficking of Nigerian women and girls for the purposes of prostitution.
• In collaboration with the United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (UNOCI), where necessary, arrest and prosecute those engaged in recruiting children for prostitution and those who force women and girls into prostitution.
• Discipline police officers or gendarmes who extort and demand bribes from sex workers to release them from detention.
• Improve outreach and services to trafficking victims by, for example:
• asking radio stations to disseminate information about where victims can reach help;
• establishing telephone hotlines for victims; and
• providing victims with needed psychological and physical health assistance, as well as other social services needed for recovery.

To Nigerian authorities:

• Conduct an in-depth investigation into who is operating the trafficking networks into Côte d'Ivoire, and prosecute those responsible in accordance with international fair trial standards.
• Protect women and girls repatriated to Nigeria after escaping from traffickers by closely following their cases and ensuring that they are not victims of reprisals for failing to repay their "debts." Ensure that the repatriated victims benefit from National Agency for Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP) programs for physical and psychosocial recovery, as well as skills training.

To the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS):

• Engage with member states to develop multi-country strategies to protect women and girls from trafficking and identify and arrest organizers of trafficking networks operating throughout West Africa.

Côte d’Ivoire/Nigeria: Combat Trafficking for Prostitution | Human Rights Watch