Rome — Women and children are the main victims of human trafficking in Africa. While today, July 30, marks the World Day against Human Trafficking, it is worth remembering how this criminal phenomenon is embedded in modern global economic dynamics.
Globally, women and girls account for 72% of people who are victims of trafficking (and are mostly victims of trafficking for forced prostitution), while the remaining 28% are men and adolescents employed in forced labor (Global Report on Trafficking on Persons 2018, drawn up by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, UNODC).
As far as Africa is concerned, "human trafficking in Africa follows historical migration routes to and from countries in the region and beyond," says the Draft Policy on the Prevention of trafficking in persons in Africa (a report prepared by the African Union in 2021). According to the report, there is a "close link between human trafficking, people smuggling and irregular migration."
Factors such as war, hunger and the disastrous economic situation (fuelled by the international debt system) in the countries of origin of "modern slaves" push more and more people to seek better living conditions abroad, ending up victims of unscrupulous trafficking networks. "African migrants kidnapped by traffickers for ransom, bought and sold as slaves or subjected to organ harvesting bear witness to this reality," says the AU report. A trade which, according to the International Labour Organization (ILO) in 2014, generated illegal profits of 150 billion dollars worldwide, of which 99 billion dollars came from the sexual exploitation of victims of trafficking. It is therefore understandable that this mass of money, although divided into thousands of streams, must be laundered and invested using the modern structures of international finance (starting with the so-called "tax havens").
Although it is difficult to provide precise figures on human trafficking, according to the aforementioned report by the African Union, 40.3 million people were victims of trafficking worldwide in 2016, of which 23% were in Africa (9.3 million).
Also according to the AU report, 3.42 million of these people were treated as real slaves subjected to forced labour; 54% of these people were in debt bondage. While men make up the majority of those destined for forced labour, women, and increasingly girls and even boys, are the majority of victims of sexual slavery. Most of them suffer from emotional trauma and mental disorders, such as depression and suicidal tendencies. Poor, unemployed and orphaned children are the social groups most vulnerable to human trafficking. However, even children from relatively well-off and well-educated families can fall victim to the ever-changing methods used by traffickers to recruit their victims, for example by using social media. It is no coincidence, that according to the African Union, "one of the main reasons why human trafficking is so widespread in Africa is the lack of information and awareness among potential victims, security forces and other stakeholders."
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