Zambia

Zambia

Zambia , officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. The neighbouring countries are the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the north, Tanzania to the north-east, Malawi to the east, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Namibia to the south, and Angola to the west....

 is a source, transit, and destination country for women and children trafficked

Human trafficking

Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...

 for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation

Sexual slavery

Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...

. Child prostitution exists in Zambia's urban centers, often encouraged or facilitated by relatives or acquaintances of the victim. Many Zambian child labor

Child labor

Child labour refers to the employment of children at regular and sustained labour. This practice is considered exploitative by many international organizations and is illegal in many countries...

ers, particularly those in the agriculture, domestic service, and fishing sectors, are also victims of human trafficking. Zambian women, lured by false employment or marriage offers, are trafficked to South Africa

South Africa

The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...

 via Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe is a landlocked country located in the southern part of the African continent, between the Zambezi and Limpopo rivers. It is bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the southwest, Zambia and a tip of Namibia to the northwest and Mozambique to the east. Zimbabwe has three...

 for sexual exploitation, and to Europe via Malawi

Malawi

The Republic of Malawi is a landlocked country in southeast Africa that was formerly known as Nyasaland. It is bordered by Zambia to the northwest, Tanzania to the northeast, and Mozambique on the east, south and west. The country is separated from Tanzania and Mozambique by Lake Malawi. Its size...

. Zambia is a transit point for regional trafficking of women and children, particularly from Angola

Angola

Angola, officially the Republic of Angola , is a country in south-central Africa bordered by Namibia on the south, the Democratic Republic of the Congo on the north, and Zambia on the east; its west coast is on the Atlantic Ocean with Luanda as its capital city...

 to Namibia

Namibia

Namibia, officially the Republic of Namibia , is a country in southern Africa whose western border is the Atlantic Ocean. It shares land borders with Angola and Zambia to the north, Botswana to the east and South Africa to the south and east. It gained independence from South Africa on 21 March...

 for agricultural labor and from the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a state located in Central Africa. It is the second largest country in Africa by area and the eleventh largest in the world...

 to South Africa. Malawian and Mozambican

Mozambique

Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique , is a country in southeastern Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west and Swaziland and South Africa to the southwest...

 adults and children are occasionally trafficked to Zambia for forced agricultural labor.

Prosecution

The Government of Zambia's anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts have not achieved concrete results; prosecutions of trafficking crimes have not occurred, as police and immigration officials remained stymied by the lack of a functional human trafficking statute. Unlike the previous year, there were no new prosecutions or convictions of alleged traffickers in 2007. Zambia prohibits human trafficking through a 2005 amendment to its penal code, which prescribes penalties of 20 years' to life imprisonment—penalties that are commensurate with those prescribed for other grave crimes. The statute does not, however, define trafficking or set out the elements of the offense, and has been interpreted thus far as applying narrowly to only the explicit sale of a person. In 2007, the government's interagency committee on trafficking finalized a draft comprehensive anti-trafficking law and national policy before transferring the documents to the Zambian Law Development Commission for review. During the reporting period, police and immigration authorities investigated at least 38 suspected cases of trafficking, the majority of which were detected at border crossings and, thus, were difficult to distinguish from smuggling. Relevant diplomatic mission

Diplomatic mission

A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one state or an international inter-governmental organisation present in another state to represent the sending state/organisation in the receiving state...

s, particularly the Congolese Embassy, assisted with the investigations. When violations of child labor laws were discovered, labor inspectors resolved these cases through mediation

Mediation

Mediation, as used in law, is a form of alternative dispute resolution , a way of resolving disputes between two or more parties. A third party, the mediator, assists the parties to negotiate their own settlement...

 and counseling with the employers and families, rather than pursuing criminal charges against the exploiters. In the absence of a usable law against human trafficking, the majority of the suspected victims and traffickers were summarily deported to their country of origin. None of the cases investigated during 2007 resulted in prosecutions. The trial of two men accused of selling an eight-year-old boy in June 2006 continued as of early 2008; the defendants remained in prison pending the outcome. The government second

Second

The second is a unit of measurement of time, and is the International System of Units base unit of time. It may be measured using a clock....

ed two officers, one from the National Police Service and one from the Department of Immigration, to IOM

IOM

IOM may refer to:* Institute of Medicine, a not-for-profit, non-governmental American organization founded in 1970* Institute of Occupational Medicine in the UK* International Organization for Migration, an intergovernmental organization...

 for four months in 2007 to receive training as Master Trainers. These officers then provided anti-trafficking training to 400 police, immigration officials, prosecutors, and judges.

Protection

The government's efforts to protect victims of trafficking are extremely limited. While there are no formal victim identification or referral procedures in Zambia, government officials informally referred victims of trafficking to IOM, which provided shelter and case management. During 2007, police and immigration authorities referred four trafficking victims—two Congolese and two Zambian—to IOM for assistance. In 2007, the government allocated $184,000 to the Ministry of Labor and Social Security's Child Labor Unit, a 23 percent increase over its 2006 budget. During 2007, the Ministry's Labor Inspections Unit undertook targeted inspections of child labor in Eastern

Eastern Province, Zambia

Eastern Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces. The province lies between the Luangwa River and the border with Malawi, from Isoka in the northeast to just north of Luangwa in the south.The provincial capital is Chipata...

, Central

Central Province, Zambia

Central Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces. The provincial capital is Kabwe, home of the Mulungushi Rock of Authority, founder home of UNIP, the ruling political party in the second republic ....

, and Lusaka Province

Lusaka Province

Lusaka Province is one of Zambia's nine provinces. The provincial capital is Lusaka, which is also the national capital.-National Parks and wildlife areas:*Lower Zambezi National Park...

s. Some child victims of forced labor were referred to NGOs for assistance or enrolled in school feeding programs. The government encourages victims' assistance in the investigation and prosecution of traffickers. Identified victims were not detained or jailed for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being trafficked.

Prevention

While Zambia lacks a comprehensive public awareness campaign on human trafficking, the government sustained efforts to prevent vulnerable children from being trafficked during 2007. It continued operation of two youth camps that provided counseling, rehabilitation, and enrolment in schools or vocational training to street children vulnerable to trafficking, including girls removed from prostitution; 210 children graduated from the camps in 2007. Immigration and law enforcement officials at border posts distributed IOM-produced literature on trafficking to local communities and the government-owned radio station broadcast anti-trafficking messages. The government worked with NGOs on an ongoing basis to publicize the dangers of prostitution through radio announcements and the distribution of pamphlets and posters. With the support of ILO/ IPEC, the Child Labor Unit formed seven District Child Labor Committees, composed of traditional chiefs, parents, health workers, and religious leaders to increase awareness of child labor laws and the worst forms of child labor. These committees provided information on exploitative child labor to 8,600 persons during the year. Standardized training in police and military academies includes a module that addresses reducing the demand for commercial sex acts as well as the dangers of commercial sexual exploitation.