For East African Community (EAC) to better tackle the pressing issue of human trafficking which is endangering the future of its young people, the region should establish a well-coordinated response to this sophisticated transnational crime, security stakeholders have recommended.

The appeal was made on Friday, November 11, in Kigali, as members of the East African Legislative Assembly (EALA)’s Committee on Regional Affairs and Conflict Resolution, interacted with representatives from entities including the Rwanda Investigation Bureau (RIB), the Rwanda National Police, the Ministry of Justice, and the civil society.

It was in line with the oversight activity the Committee undertook on the measures taken by the EAC Partner States in combating terrorism and trafficking in persons – two major threats to peace and security in the region.

The proposed recommendations from the session include that EAC should establish an anti-human trafficking coordination unit/centre, which brings together Member State institutions that are responsible for tackling the issue for an effectively organised action.

Another recommendation is that citizens from the region who do not have formal employment or labour contracts from the countries where they are supposed to go to work, should not be allowed to leave the region, either through borders or airports. And, still connected to this, those contracts should be approved by the immigration and emigration offices of the Partner States.

This, according to security actors, will help ensure that the contracts are issued only by officially recognised recruitment agencies (that link entities that want workers and job seekers), and curb the unscrupulous agents who exploit people by ill-intended 'promise' for decent employment.

A person who wants to leave the country has to provide information including who is going to employ them, the job contract, and their phone number.

MP Fatuma Ndangiza, Chairperson of the Committee, said this criminal activity – human trafficking –has been benefiting its cartel, to the detriment of youth, especially women and children who fall victim of it.

"There are urgent measures that can be taken at regional level, through the [EAC] Council of Ministers, so that, at least, those who are going to work [abroad] get formal contracts,” she said, also suggesting the need for counter human trafficking coordination unit for effective strategies.

"There has been a recommendation to have as a region, diplomatic communication, especially with the destination countries, especially in the Middle East, so that there are complete efforts that are taken, not only at countries of origin, in transit, but also to the countries of destination,” observed.

Beware of that job promise abroad

Speaking during the session, Peter Karake, Director General in charge of crime intelligence and counterterrorism at RIB, said human traffickers work as a syndicate with a sophisticated network operating in different countries, such that detecting and arresting them requires a coordinated approach, centred on cooperation between countries.

Some people, mostly women or girls, he said, are taken out of the country being promised well-paying jobs – such as getting $300 a month for domestic work – and they are easily duped because they need such income, but find themselves being subjected to servitude.

Citing the ordeal of one human trafficking victims – a girl – who managed to escape from one of the Middle East countries, Karake said that it turned out the promised money-making employment was rather an exploitation plot.

"If you get there, you start to work 24 hours a day; in the contract they told you, you would be working for a couple [a young family of four]; but you also work for their parents, uncles; you are beaten, you are tortured, you are not given food. So, when you start complaining, that’s what she said, they take away your passport,” he exposed.

He said that they are sometimes told that they were bought, that they are their commodities, and cannot leave before the contract period, like five years, ends, indicating that contracts are sometimes in Arabic, which they don’t understand, but what they are most interested in is a job that they want.

"To the worst extent, they even start sexually harassing them,” he said.

He indicated the Palermo Protocol [to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children] says that it is qualified to be human trafficking crime when somebody went through the three stages – recruitment, transportation, and exploitation.

"So, for us as investigators the challenges we have, we may have the recruitment evidence, someone was texted, somebody was on Facebook; we may get even transport evidence; when it becomes to exploitation, we need this cooperation and partnership with member countries to show how, where she used to sleep, how she used to be beaten, the proof of no payment, [and] the proof the fake contract,” he said.

Providence Umurungi, Head of International Justice and Judicial Cooperation Department at the Ministry of Justice, said statistics show between 2018 and October 2022, 879 cases of human trafficking suspected victims were prevented – and 67 per cent of them were females, while 33 per cent were males.

She exposed 316 suspects of human trafficking were investigated from 2018 to 2021; while 110 people accused of trafficking in persons were prosecuted during the same period.

From 2018 to June 2022, she indicated, 57 victims were repatriated from different countries to Rwanda.

Human trafficking is a modern slavery where human beings especially women and children are traded for purposes of forced labour, forced marriage, sexual slavery, or extraction of organs or tissues for sale and can occur within a country or transnationally, the Committee indicated.

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimates that 49.6 million people were living in modern slavery in 2021, of which 27.6 million were in forced labour and 22 million in forced marriage.

Of the 27.6 million people in forced labour, 17.3 million are exploited in the private sector; 6.3 million in forced commercial sexual exploitation, and 3.9 million in forced labour imposed by state.