Human trafficking in Gabon

Gabon is primarily a transit country for children from Benin, Nigeria, Togo, Mali, Guinea, and other West African countries who are subjected to human trafficking, specifically forced labor and forced prostitution. Some victims transit through Gabon en route to exploitation in Equatorial Guinea. According to UNICEF, the majority of victims are boys who are forced to work as street hawkers or mechanics. Girls generally are subjected to conditions of involuntary domestic servitude, or forced labor in markets or roadside restaurants. Stepped-up coastal surveillance over the past year – especially following the October 2009 arrival in Gabonese waters of a sea vessel that was carrying 34 child trafficking victims, some of whom were destined for Equatorial Guinea – caused traffickers to change their routes, which included utilizing estuaries and rivers to transport children. The majority of victims were young girls, a departure from previous patterns of trafficking in the region. Trafficking offenders appear to operate in loose ethnic-based crime networks. Most child traffickers are women, who serve as intermediaries in their countries of origin. In some cases, child victims report that their parents had turned them over to intermediaries promising employment opportunities in Gabon. The government has no reports of international organized crime syndicates, employment agencies, marriage brokers, or travel services facilitating trafficking in Gabon. In 2009, the government began tracking a new trend of young adults between ages 18 and 25 being forced into domestic servitude or prostitution in Gabon.

The Government of Gabon does not fully comply with what the U.S. government considers to be minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these efforts – most notably the arrests of seven suspected traffickers and the expansion of protection services for child victims of trafficking – the government did not show evidence of increasing efforts to address trafficking. Specifically, the government, for another consecutive year, did not provide information on prosecutions or convictions of traffickers, despite the arrest of over 30 suspected offenders between 2003 and 2008. Because of this, Gabon has been placed on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive year.

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