Factors That Contribute to the Trafficking Infrastructure

Cameroon

Trafficking Routes

Cameroon is a country of origin, transit, and destination for children who are trafficked for forced labor to and from neighboring countries, such as Benin, the Central African Republic, Chad, Gabon, and Nigeria. For example, children from the Central African Republic and Chad are trafficked to Cameroon, and Cameroonian and Nigerian children are trafficked to Chad. Trafficking in women and children takes place to Europe (e.g., to the United Kingdom). There is also trafficking within Cameroon.

Factors That Contribute to the Trafficking Infrastructure

Trafficking in African women and children for forced prostitution or labor is exacerbated by war, poverty, and flawed or nonexistent birth registration systems, according to a recent study by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Poverty aggravates already desperate conditions caused by conflict, discrimination, and repression. Because children who are not registered at birth never formally acquire a nationality, they are easily moved between countries. The study also found that Africa’s 3.3 million refugees and its estimated 12.7 million internally displaced people are those most vulnerable to trafficking.[1] HIV/AIDS has left millions of Sub-Saharan African children orphaned. By 2010, an estimated 20 million children under the age of 15 in Sub-Saharan Africa will have lost one or both parents from HIV/AIDS.[2] Those children are left extremely vulnerable to trafficking for forced labor, forced prostitution, or forced combat.

The Association for the Promotion of Cameroonian Women, with the support of UNICEF, released a report that painted “a dire picture of the situation of women outside the home.” Women are harassed and intimidated at work and in schools; trafficking in women and children exists, as does forced prostitution and many forms of discrimination. Three-fifths of schoolgirls are victims of violence, and 65 percent of those infected with HIV/AIDS in the country are women.[3] Deterioration of living conditions in rural areas, large family sizes, and the demand for unskilled and docile workers are blamed for child trafficking from the Central African Republic to Cameroon.[4]

Forms of Trafficking

Eighty-nine percent of African countries are affected by trafficking flows to and from other countries in Africa. In 34 percent of African countries, trafficking also takes place to Europe, and in 26 percent, trafficking flows to the Middle East.[5] In West Africa and Central Africa, trafficking is recognized as a problem in more than 70 percent of countries, and it is perceived as severe or very severe in over 30 percent of countries in the region.[6]

According to a report by the International Labor Organization (ILO), thousands of Cameroonian children fall victim to trafficking every year.[7] Children are exploited as laborers on plantations and cocoa farms[8] and also as workers in small shops, bars, and households. [9] It is common for a middle-class family in Cameroon to have one or several children working for them in exchange for a very modest wage and minimal education.[10] The practice of child labor in households and fields is a tradition that sometimes masks trafficking. In rural areas, children as young as 4 are expected to work.[11] A recent survey sampled children and employers in Yaounde, in Limbe, and in Mbangasina, a region with large cocoa farms. The survey revealed that children from Chad, the Central African Republic, and Nigeria were paid as little as 3,000 CFA francs per month to perform chores sometimes lasting 18 hours a day. The children suffered from malnourishment and sexual abuse.[12]

One Nigerian boy told of being trafficked to Cameroon by a fisherman. The trafficker would visit Oron Beach in Nigeria, acquainting himself with some of the children in the market square. The boy spent 3 years doing domestic work and working as a fisherman before he was returned to Nigeria.[13] A ring trafficking Cameroonian girls and a boy to the United Kingdom was recently discovered when a Cameroonian girl escaped from a London brothel, where she had been forced into prostitution. Four years earlier she had been sold as a bride to a tribal chief, who sexually abused and mutilated her. She escaped from the marriage when a woman offered her a chance to work at a London restaurant; when she arrived in London, however, she was forced to work in a brothel.[14]

A common tradition in Cameroon is the practice of placement. The practice provides a means for poor families to educate their children. Under its original form, poor family members would send their children to live with wealthy family members or with other families who lived in a city. The children were expected to provide various services to the foster family in exchange for an education, vocational training, or money sent back to the family of origin. Gradually, traffickers began to exploit this intrafamily help system. Exploitation can range from withholding pay and refusing or failing to educate the child to abusing the child physically, sexually, and mentally.[15]

Sex tourism has been reported to be on the rise in Cameroon, where officials and health advocates fear its detrimental effects on HIV/AIDS prevention campaigns.[16]

Government Responses

The Penal Code forbids the prostitution of children,[17] the corruption of youth,[18] child abuse,[19] and forced marriages.[20] In addition, it outlaws kidnapping of minors[21] and kidnapping involving fraud and violence.[22]

The code imposes a punishment of life imprisonment on anyone who, through physical or moral violence, forces a female, even a pubescent one, to have sexual relations.[23]

The code prohibits procuring (i.e., causing, aiding, or facilitating the prostitution of another; sharing in the proceeds of the prostitution of another; receiving subsidies from a person engaging in prostitution; and failing to provide proof of an independent income). Punishment is imprisonment for 6 months to 5 years and a fine. The punishment increases to up to 10 years of imprisonment in cases involving aggravated circumstances, such as when coercion or deceit are used, when the victim is under the age of 21, or when the perpetrator is armed or is the parent, guardian, or custodian of the victim.[24] In the latter case, the perpetrator will be deprived of any position of trusteeship.

The constitution[25] and the 1992 Labor Code[26] prohibit forced or compulsory labor. The Labor Code defines forced or compulsory labor as “any labor or service demanded of an individual under threat of penalty, being a labor or service which the individual has not freely offered to perform.”[27] The code also prohibits child labor; the minimum age of employment is 14 years.[28]

In addition, the Penal Code criminalizes slavery. Punishment is imprisonment for 10 to 20 years.[29] If a victim is younger than 18, the punishment increases to imprisonment for 15 to 20 years.[30]

The Civil Code allows for intercountry adoption. It states that “a Cameroonian national may adopt a foreigner or be adopted by a foreigner.”[31]

The government of Cameroon has introduced a national plan to fight child labor. The main objectives of this action plan are to protect children from the most degrading forms of abuse and exploitation and to abolish child labor completely.[32]

Nongovernmental and International Organization Responses

The West Africa Cocoa/Agriculture Project (WACAP), a 3-year project launched in 2003, is aimed at removing some 10,000 children from exploitation on cocoa and other farms in West Africa and providing for their education. Representatives from Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Ghana, Guinea, Nigeria, the European Union, and the United States set up the project.[33] WACAP is the second program by the ILO’s International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor designed to eliminate child labor in the cocoa and agriculture sector in Cameroon. It aims to withdraw 1,000 children from the cocoa sector, to prevent 500 children from entering the sector, and to provide livelihood assistance to 500 adult family members.[34]

A week devoted to child domestic servants was launched in the capital, Yaounde, in June 2004. Beginning with a meeting between the regional office of the ILO and the media, the week featured television programs, roundtable discussions, and other activities across Cameroon. In Cameroon, the ILO is engaged in one project assisting child laborers working on farms and another project assisting victims of child trafficking.[35]

[1] Jonathan Fowler, “UNICEF: Human Trafficking in Africa Fueled by War, Economic Hardship, and Lack of Birth Registration,” Associated Press, 23 April 2004.

[2] United Nations Children’s Fund, Africa’s Orphaned Generations (New York: UNICEF, 2003).

[3] Sylvestre Tetchiada, “Report Paints Bleak Picture of Women’s Lives, Inter Press Service, 12 March 2004.

[4] “Survey Exposes Child Abuse in Cameroon,” Panafrican News Agency Daily Newswire, 18 February 2004.

[5] “Media Facts” for Andrea Rossi, ed., Trafficking in Human Beings, Especially Women and Children, in Africa” (Annunziata, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, September 2003).

[6] Andrea Rossi, ed., Trafficking in Human Beings, Especially Women and Children, in Africa” (Annunziata, Italy: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre, September 2003), pp. 9–10.

[7] Nathalie Feujio, Lutte contre le trafic des enfants a des fins d’exploitatiuon de leur travail dans les pays d’Afrique occidentale et centrale—Etude des tendances actuelles: Projet de rapport final du Cameroun (Geneva: International Labor Organization and International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, 2000). See also interview with Pape Beye, senior specialist, International Labor Organization Central Africa Multidisciplinary Advisory Team, Protection Project Fact-Finding Mission, Yaounde, Cameroon, July 2001.

[8] Brenda Yufeh, “Government to Stamp out Child Trafficking,” Cameroon Tribune, 21 April 2004.

[9] Combattre le trafic des enfants a des fins d’exploitation de leur travail en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre, rapport de synthese basé sur les études du Burkina Faso, du Cameroun, du Gabon, du Gahana, du Mali, du Nigéria et du Togo (Geneva: International Labor Organization and International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, 2000).

[10] Interview with D. Ndine-Mpessa, subdirector for penal action at the Ministry of Justice, head of the Cameroon Association for Women Lawyers, Protection Project Fact-Finding Mission, Yaounde, Cameroon, July 2001.

[11] Combattre le trafic des enfants a des fins d’exploitation de leur travail en Afrique de l’Ouest et du Centre, rapport de synthese basé sur les études du Burkina Faso, du Cameroun, du Gabon, du Gahana, du Mali, du Nigéria et du Togo (Geneva: International Labor Organization and International Program on the Elimination of Child Labor, 2000).

[12] “Survey Exposes Child Abuse in Cameroon,” Panafrican News Agency Daily Newswire, 18 February 2004.

[13] “Child Trafficking: Naval Men Recover Kidnapped Boy from Cameroon,” Africa News, 8 September 2003.

[14] “African Trafficking Ring Linked to U.K.,” BBC News, 8 July 2003.

[15] Interview with D. Ndine-Mpessa, subdirector for penal action at the Ministry of Justice, head of the Cameroon Association for Women Lawyers, Protection Project Fact-Finding Mission, Yaounde, Cameroon, July 2001.

[16] “Sex Tourism Hampers HIV/AIDS Prevention,” United Nations Integrated Regional Information Network, 13 August 2004, http://www.plusnews.org/AIDSreport.asp?ReportID=2380&SelectRegion=Southern_Africa&SelectCountry=CAMEROON.

[17] Article 343.

[18] Article 344.

[19] Article 350.

[20] Article 356.

[21] Article 352.

[22] Articles 353 and 354.

[23] Article 296.

[24] Article 294.

[25] Law No. 96/06 of 18 January 1996 amending the constitution of 2 June 1972.

[26] Law No. 92/007 of 14 August 1992, part I, section 2(3).

[27] Section 2(4).

[28] Section 86(1).

[29] Article 293.

[30] Article 342.

[31] Article 345.

[32] Eva Benouaich and Mireille Affa’a Mindzié, Rights of the Child in the Republic of Cameroon: Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by the Republic of Cameroon (Geneva: Committee on the Rights of the Child, 2001).

[33] “Regional Project to Stem Use of Children in Farms Opens in Accra,” Panafrican News Agency Daily Newswire, 16 July 2003.

[34] “WACAP against Child Labour in Cameroon,” Africa News, 25 September 2003.

[35] “Child Labour Week under Way in Cameroon, Panafrican News Agency Daily Newswire, 8 June 2004.