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Paper presented by Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko, General Secretary, The Lutheran World Federation Convenor, Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa (IFAPA), at the International Forum: What religious communities can do to combat human trafficking, Cape Town
3 October 2007

Trafficking in Human Beings: An African Inter-Faith Perspective

The most basic notions of human dignity in all religious traditions maintain that human beings are not movable possessions (chattels) to be bought and sold. And yet, an increasing number of human beings are trafficked each year across international borders, and probably even more within national boundaries. It is reported that approximately 80% of the people trafficked are women and girls, of whom about 50% are minors. The reasons are related to sexual exploitation; organized begging; forced or underpaid labour; and ‘organ harvesting’, – all of which undermine the human dignity of the persons trafficked.

According to research undertaken by UNICEF, UNESCO and other UN agencies, demonstrate that every country in the African continent is touched in one way or another by the scourge of human trafficking. For that reasons no country can excuse itself from addressing the issue. I can mention just a few examples on which there has been recent research and which illustrate the different dimensions of the problem. Lesotho is said to be a case of a country of origin and transit for human trafficking, but which has inadequate legislative frameworks and poor law enforcement and administrative capacities to address the problem. Nigeria is a country that has acquired a reputation for being one of the leading African centres for human trafficking. It is a country of origin, transit and destination for trafficked persons. But it is also one of the few African countries to have passed a law addressing this specific issue, and to have undertaken vigorous awareness-raising activities. South Africa, because of its relative economic strength and advanced communication and transportation infrastructure, has become a regional hub for the human trafficking business, especially for trafficking to extra-regional destinations. South Africa attracts people from the whole continent fleeing from armed conflict, political and economic upheaval, food insecurity, the HIV/AIDS pandemic, and unemployment. Organized crime syndicates, local traffickers and others have been quick to exploit this vulnerable population. Zimbabwe provides a graphic illustration of how quickly economic collapse and political difficulties can provide conditions for human trafficking. Zimbabwe is now reported to be an important source and transit country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labour and sexual exploitation within the country, elsewhere in the region, and elsewhere beyond the African continent.

I have lived abroad for many years, so I can also observe the situation from the destination end of the chain, in an international context. From this perspective I am struck by the fact that apart from the physical risks faced by trafficked persons, their lack of legal status and general vulnerability in the destination countries puts them beyond the reach of even the most basic legal and economic protections. In Switzerland, for example, prostitution is legal and regulated. But only persons with Swiss nationality or resident status can benefit from the protections of such regulation. I am informed that a number of Cameroonian women who had been trafficked into Switzerland for the purposes of prostitution have recently been refouled en masse to Cameroon. In this way, the victims of trafficking have been victimized twice, and thrown into even greater insecurity than that which they left.

Having said that we are all aware that the causes of human trafficking are extremely complex and inter-connected; with other factors and therefore there are no “stand-alone solutions” to these problems. However, they can be described as falling into two major categories – ‘push’ factors and ‘pull’ factors.

Africa is a continent distinguished by its strong communal values – as expressed in the notion of ‘Ubuntu’. Africa is also a deeply religious continent, with every African cherishing a strong religious identity – whether it be Christian, Muslim, Traditional or others. So how can it be that our children and women are subjected to trafficking that reduces them to mere chattels, objects to be bought and sold? This is a question that deserves a response from every political, religious and community leader, both in Africa and in the countries to which African women, children and men are trafficked.

Push factors

Poverty: The single most important ‘push’ factor in Africa today, as in most other contexts, is poverty. In the conditions of extreme economic stress experienced by communities throughout the continent, many Africans are presented with a desperate necessity to find a way – any way – to feed themselves and their families. The impact of poverty is much more than reducing the capacity of an individual to care for themselves and their family. It has a devastating spiritual impact; it undermines the dignity and self-esteem of an individual to the extent that one begins to accept that they are less than human.

Insecurity: Insecurity is also a major ‘push’ factor behind the growth of human trafficking in Africa. This insecurity may result from armed conflict, from political crisis, from domestic or community violence, from the advance of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, natural disasters or from the breakdown of social structures and symbols that protected human dignity in traditional societies. This results in people fleeing from violence and other causes of insecurity lose the protections of family and community and find themselves at greatly increased risk of trafficking. The community and family structures that once provided protection from such risks are themselves becoming unstable and insecure under the onslaught of globalization.

Marginalization of women: In traditional African societies, women were far from powerless. They had a central role to play in the family and community, and therefore considerable influence. However, with the breakdown of those traditional social structures, this central role has been eroded and hence the vulnerability of women greatly increased. Women are now rendered vulnerable by, for example, lack of economic independence and lack of the same education and employment opportunities as their male counterparts, in ways that could not have occurred in traditional contexts. Given the fractured state of African societies today and women’s relative lack of independence, African women are much more at risk of being ‘commodified’ and trafficked than African men.

Pull factors

Demand: A key ‘pull’ factor is obviously the demand in the wealthier countries of the region, the Middle East and the West (especially Europe) for cheap labour and for the commercial sex industry. Supplying this demand has become much easier in recent years, as a result of the increased availability of communication and travel and the globalization of commerce. Accordingly, whatever may be done in countries of origin to reduce trafficking cannot fully succeed without equal attention to addressing the demand in the destination countries. Moreover, efforts to address the supply side of the trade without also addressing the demand side taste strongly of hypocrisy.

Profit: For some actors engaged in trafficking in human beings, it is a highly lucrative business. According to some estimates, profits are as much as 20 billion USD annually. Organized crime cartels have become very active in human trafficking. But it is often much more amorphous networks, including members of the African diaspora themselves, that organize and reap the profits of this trade in human beings. African families and communities also sometimes benefit from the earnings of members who have been trafficked. I have heard of parents, envious of the new tiles on a neighbour’s roof, encouraging their daughters to do what the neighbour’s daughter did and take up an offer of ‘employment’ in the West – without fully realizing what that ‘employment’ might entail. But for the trafficked persons themselves, generally the only reward is exploitation, misery and sometimes death.

False promises/unrealistic expectations: Many of those trafficked are lured by false promises, or by unrealistic expectations of life and economic opportunities in the destination country. Without other information about the real experiences of people who have been trafficked, poor people in rural communities have few defences to protect them from following – or sending their children to follow – a mirage.

Areas for action

In the African setting, I believe that there are three main areas for action in responding to the phenomenon of human trafficking:

1. Peace and development
2. Empowerment of African women
3. Education and information dissemination

Each of these challenges in fact represents an even larger problem, of which human trafficking is but one symptom. Human trafficking cannot be treated as if it were a discrete issue, isolated from the general threats to human security and development in Africa. And in facing each of these challenges, I believe that religious leaders have a key role to play. Given the importance of religion to all Africans, religious leaders have a respected leadership role even beyond that of governments and other authorities. They have a responsibility to teach and protect the values that emanate from our faith traditions and undergird our societies. In this way, they can offer ‘moral re-armament’ against the threat of trafficking, and protection to the most vulnerable members of society who are at the greatest risk of being trafficked. They can provide an example of unity by working together, in addressing the ‘push and pull factors’, rather than independently, to respond to these threats. And they can give leadership to the community as a whole in responding to these issues.

Peace and development: Earlier I said that the greatest threats to human security and human development in Africa are poverty and conflict. Poverty is an over-riding concern. Hardly any social evil in Africa can be addressed without addressing the underlying context of poverty, often extreme poverty. The many and persistent conflicts in Africa – all too often linked to poverty and the struggle for resources – have undermined decades of nation-building and development efforts in the continent. However, peace and human dignity are two values on which all the religious traditions in Africa, and hence all Africans, can and should agree. Conflict and lack of development are threats to all Africans, regardless of their religious affiliations. Given the non-sectarian nature of these challenges, and the acknowledged respect in which religious leaders are held in Africa and the leadership they can exercise, there is an enormous potential for working together across faith boundaries to promote peace and human development. And religious leaders can bring to this joint work a dimension that no conflict mediator or development practitioner can – the capacity to address spiritual poverty as well as material poverty. This is the challenge that has inspired the formation in 2002 of IFAPA (Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa), of which I have the honour to serve as Convenor.

Empowerment of African women: Women’s property rights, their educational and employment opportunities, and their equal status in society need to be firmly entrenched if the future development of Africa is to be secured. And so long as women are held in complete dependence on men, they will continue to be at risk of trafficking and exploitation of other forms. Contrary to popular mis-conceptions, I find there is broad inter-faith agreement on the need for the empowerment of African women. Certainly in IFAPA, we recognize and believe that the empowerment of women leads to the empowerment of everyone in their societies, and that the potential of those societies and countries cannot be realized without women’s empowerment. Again, this is an area in which there is a great and mostly unrealized potential for Africa’s religious leaders to work together in pursuit of this objective.

Education and information dissemination: The lack of educational opportunities for many of its young people is a well-recognized threat to Africa’s future. This lack of education and information entails many risks for Africa’s youth, including the risk of trafficking. So long as they do not know what really lies in store for trafficked persons, Africa’s youth are defenceless against the false promises and unrealistic expectations I spoke about before. Information on these realities should be widely disseminated to those communities and individuals most at risk. Religious leaders and through the religious institutions have an unparalleled capacity for educating and disseminating information, formally and informally, and this is a critical need in the fight against trafficking. I strongly believe that the African governments, the religious institutions, the civil society and the private sector should pull their resources together in addressing these root causes in order to find ‘root solutions’.

The inter-regional dimension

I have spoken mainly about inter-faith cooperation among African religious leaders to address the scourge of human trafficking and the root causes thereof. But I have also said that the problem cannot only be addressed at the regional level, but must also engage actors inter-regionally, given that the trade in human beings is now a fully globalized business.

I mentioned the case of the Cameroonian women refouled from Switzerland. In such cases, an appropriate inter-faith response should not only engage African religious leaders, but also the religious leaders of the country of destination. To address the situation I have described, I would propose a visit by a delegation of religious leaders from Cameroon to dialogue with the religious leaders of Switzerland, to jointly reflect and to formulate appropriate responses which all can commit to implementing in a coordinated way. Such a dialogue should be proceeded by careful preparation in the country of origin and the country of destination.

It is quite clear in my mind that there is a need to address the fundamental moral issues that lie behind the demand and supply side of this trade. This is a special task of religious leaders, that can be effectively undertaken when religious communities are committed to working beyond their own denominational lines of division. I also believe that religious leaders are well placed to advocate for ethical treatment and care for trafficked persons, whether in terms of their legal status and rights in the destination countries or their economic empowerment and support. To use the Swiss-Cameroonian example again, why shouldn’t religious leaders insist that women trafficked into Switzerland for the commercial sex trade be fully entitled to the protections of social security? Let me explain the logic behind this question: I am informed that many trafficked women end up in forced prostitution where they are dispossessed of their identity documents and are placed far from the legal protection and live under constant fear. They are forced to be prostitutes for many years. The additional dilemma is when they become of age and are regarded as worthless for the business. They become disposable and fall into the hands of the law enforcement authorities; leading to their deportation back to their country of origin without financial resources and means of survival. I am also informed that such persons turn around and recruit younger women for false employment. This claim might also assist in concentrating the minds of the authorities and society of Switzerland on the fundamental problem of the demand that resulted in the trafficking of these women.

Conclusion

The phenomenon of human trafficking is not new. It has been present as an expression of human cruelty and greed since time immemorial. The dimensions and scale of the trade today, however, present one of the worst faces of globalization. It represents, moreover, a serious breakdown of basic social and community structures in Africa, that African women and children should be denigrated and commodified in this way. It symptomizes a deep spiritual as well as material poverty.

Within their countries, religious leaders can advocate with government authorities to ensure that appropriate legislative frameworks are in place, and implemented. They can collaborate with government, community leaders and other actors to ensure that the society as a whole responds genuinely and effectively to the threat of trafficking. They can take particular leadership in the field of education and information dissemination to reduce the risks that women and children might fall unwittingly into this trap. Regionally and internationally, religious leaders can work together to address both the supply and the demand sides of human trafficking.

Most of all, religious leaders, as the custodians of our most fundamental values, have a responsibility to help lead towards the establishment of a ‘decent society’, in which a deep regard for the inherent dignity of every human being would be the strongest possible protection against this abhorrent trade.

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