Slavery in Chad

Chad is a source and destination country for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and forced prostitution. The country's trafficking problem is primarily internal and frequently involves parents entrusting children to relatives or intermediaries in return for promises of education, apprenticeship, goods, or money; selling or bartering children into involuntary domestic servitude or herding is used as a means of survival by families seeking to reduce the number of mouths to feed. Child trafficking victims are primarily subjected to forced labor as herders, domestic servants, agricultural laborers, or beggars. Child cattle herders follow traditional routes for grazing cattle and at times cross ill-defined international borders into Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR), and Nigeria. Underage Chadian girls travel to larger towns in search of work, where some are subsequently subjected to prostitution. Some girls are compelled to marry against their will, only to be forced by their husbands into involuntary domestic servitude or agricultural labor. In past reporting periods, traffickers transported children from Cameroon and the CAR to Chad's oil producing regions for commercial sexual exploitation; it is unknown whether this practice persisted in 2009.

During the reporting period, the Government of Chad actively engaged in fighting with anti-government armed opposition groups. Each side unlawfully conscripted, including from refugee camps, and used children as combatants, guards, cooks, and look-outs. The government's conscription of children for military service, however, decreased by the end of the reporting period, and a government-led, UNICEF-coordinated process to identify and demobilize remaining child soldiers in military installations and rebel camps began in mid-2009. A significant, but unknown number of children remain within the ranks of the Chadian National Army (ANT). Sudanese children in refugee camps in eastern Chad were forcibly recruited by Sudanese rebel groups, some of which were backed by the Chadian government during the reporting period.

The government does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. During the reporting period, the government took steps to investigate and address the problem of forced child labor in animal herding. It also initiated efforts to raise awareness about the illegality of conscripting child soldiers, to identify and remove children from the ranks of its national army, and to demobilize children captured from rebel groups. The government failed, however, to enact legislation prohibiting trafficking in persons and undertook minimal anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts and victim protection activities. The country faces severe constraints including lack of a strong judicial system, destabilizing civil conflicts, and a heavy influx of refugees from neighboring states. U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2 Watchlist" in 2017.

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