CHAD: 2006 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT (PART I)

UNCLAS NDJAMENA 000337

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR AF, AF/C, AF/RSA FOR HARPOLE, G/TIP FOR
ZEITLIN, G, G/IWI;INR, DRL, DS/IP/AF, DS/IP/ITA; LONDON AND
PARIS FOR AFRICAWATCHERS; DEPARTMENT PASS TO USAID
AFR/SD/DG AND DEPARTMENT OF HOMELAND SECURITY AND TREASURY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KWMN KCRM SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB
EAID, CD
SUBJECT: CHAD: 2006 TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS REPORT (PART I)

REF: A. STATE 2730889


B. 05 NDJAMENA 386

C. 05 NDJAMENA 387

D. NDJAMENA 1343


1. Summary. Despite severe resource constraints, the
Government of Chad is taking steps to address problems of
child trafficking which are commensurate with the scope and
magnitude of the problem. Government officials are working
on each of the elements of the Trafficking in Persons
workplan to address the issues of child herders, child
domestics, child beggars, and child prostitution. Answers
are keyed to reftel's overview and prevention sections.
Embassy's trafficking in persons point-of-contacts are P/E
officer Kathleen FitzGibbon and P/E Assistant Joel Mbaibarem.
Ms. FitzGibbon and Mr. Mbaibarem can be reached at (235)
51-70-09 or via e-mail at fitzgibbonka@state.gov and
mbaibaremjx@state.gov. Two post officers spent 85 hours
preparing this report. End Summary.

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OVERVIEW OF CHAD'S ANTI-TRAFFICKING PERFORMANCE
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2. (21. A/B) Chad is a minor source, destination, and
transit country for trafficking in children. Chad's
trafficking problem involves the internal trafficking of
children as herders, domestics, beggars, and prostitutes.
There have been uncorroborated reports of Cameroonian and
Central African Republic minors trafficked to Chad's oil
producing region for prostitution. Government officials in
Chad are investigating reports that Chadian children have
been trafficked for begging purposes to Saudi Arabia during
the hajj. Child herders follow traditional routes for the
grazing of cattle and often cross international borders into
Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Nigeria. There have
been no changes in the direction of trafficking and there are
no reports of adults being trafficked for labor or sexual
exploitation. Children are generally put into trafficking
situations by their own families, who knowingly or
unknowingly "sell" or give their children to relatives or
intermediaries to work as domestics or herders and marabouts
for Islamic education. Most children are trafficked within
Chad. Police sources do not have evidence of major
trafficking networks, but work closely with Cameroonian
border officials on cases of children who are taken across
the border. (Note: N'Djamena, Chad, and Kousseri, Cameroon,
are a 45-minute drive apart. End Note.) The Government
acknowledges trafficking of children is a problem and has
designated points-of-contact at the directorate level in the
Ministries of Justice, Public Security, Social Action and
Family, Labor, and Education. President Idriss Deby became
more involved in the issue and took action against several
Koranic schools for using children as forced laborers in
September 2005.


3. (21. H continued) The Government and UNICEF have
undertaken several studies of child labor and child
trafficking. The most recent, a survey of child domestic
workers, was completed in June 2005. The Government used its
presentation to kick off a multi-city public awareness
campaign. The Government also sponsored a workshop on the
implications of the study for various government ministries
in May. The study provided the first systematic examination
of child domestic workers between the ages of five and
eighteen. The study also explored the process through which
children are placed in exploitative situations. In the
majority of cases, poverty was cited as the key reason for
seeking domestic employment. The majority of child workers
(62 percent),according to the study, were boys. Young girls
migrate to N'djamena from southern Chad to earn money to
afford to buy cooking utensils and other household items in
preparation for marriage in the villages. Most children who
migrate into N'Djamena for work come from southern Chad,
Logone Occidental and Oriental and Mandoul. Twenty-four
percent of working children, in the study, were between the
ages of eight and fourteen. Sixty-eight percent were between
fifteen and seventeen years of age. Thirty-one percent of
the child workers were never enrolled in school. Eighty-six
percent could not read or write any language. Eleven percent
could read or write in French and two percent in Arabic.
Most children left school for financial reasons to seek
apprenticeships. The report's recommendation includes:
universal access to free education, stabilization of family
situations, enforcement of government regulations prohibiting
children from working, a multi-ministerial anti-child labor
campaign in the countryside, particularly Mandoul, and
protection measures to include centers for exploited children.


4. (21. H continued) This is the third survey the
government has completed over the past five years on
trafficking and trafficking-related situations. These
surveys are the most reliable information available on the
scope and magnitude of the problem. Collecting statistics
and conducting surveys are difficult. The Ministry of Social
Action and Family's 2004 survey involved 7,000 at-risk
children to determine the level of intervention necessary to
adequately address problems faced by children living in the
streets, victims of sexual exploitation, and trafficking. It
determined that there are some 1,500 to 2,000 boys trafficked
as child herders, 500 boys and girls trafficked as child
domestics, and 500 girls prostituted. The practice of child
prostitution, according to the surveys, is one in which the
perpetrators are often known to the family. Law enforcement
officials have not found any networks or rings of commercial
exploitation, but believe the activity is more organized than
other forms of trafficking. The estimates of victims could
grow as awareness of the different forms of trafficking is
raised.


5. (21. C) The cash-strapped Chadian Government lacks the
resources and capacity to address most social problems. As a
result, the government officials have expressed willingness
to provide in-kind contributions such as land, buildings for
rehabilitation shelters, and social services for victims.
Lack of paved roads, electricity, computers, and telephone
coverage in most parts of the country makes it difficult for
the Government to coordinate anti-trafficking efforts and
collect information. Case documentation is kept in paper
files, the ability to replicate and distribute is also
constrained by sporadic electricity and lack of repair
capacity. The capital, N'Djamena, often lacks electricity.
Only the privileged have generators. Most information is
collected through face-to-face meetings between officials
during long, difficult road trips to the interior. It can
take 3-5 days to drive to major towns in northern Chad.
During the rainy season, the roads are often impassable and
eastern Chad is intermittently cut off from the capital.
Corruption at the highest levels of government has become an
increasing problem. However, trafficking-related corruption
is not a critical problem. The Government has difficulty
paying civil servant salaries regularly. A dispute with the
World Bank over changes to the oil revenue management law has
cut off World Bank assistance to Chad and deposits of oil
revenues into the government account. Chadian rebels, backed
by the Government of Sudan, attacked Chad in December 2005.
Much of the Government's resources are being spent on
defending the border.


6. (21. D) The Government monitors the anti-trafficking
activities of various ministries with each yearly budget
cycle and participates on technical committees with UNICEF to
evaluate joint protection efforts. The Director for
Childen's Issues at the Ministry of Justice has begun pulling
together anti-trafficking law enforcement statistics. The
Director for Children's Issues at the Ministry of Social
Action is responsible for overall monitoring of the issues.
There is no formal, comprehensive annual anti-trafficking
assessment that is issued to international and regional
organizations. However, the two Ministries have prepared
this type of report for international conferences and are in
the process, with UNICEF's assistance, of preparing a report
on Progress on Children's Rights, which includes a section on
anti-trafficking, for the United Nations.


7. (22. A/B/H) The Chadian Government acknowledges its
trafficking problem and is taking steps to raise public
awareness, strengthen its law enforcement response, and to
develop protection options for children. The Government
lacks capacity and resources and works closely with UNICEF,
religious institutions, and non-governmental organizations to
raise public awareness and assist victims. Within the
Chadian Government, there are officials in key ministries
designated to handle issues related to children, child labor,
and trafficking and who form an official working group. They
include: Justice, Public Security, Labor, Education, and
Social Action and Family, which houses a Special Protection
Project that coordinates various governmental
anti-trafficking activities. The mechanism for coordinating
anti-trafficking is a multi-agency working group at the
national level and technical committees at the regional and
prefecture levels. To the best of its ability, the
Government provides for anti-trafficking activities in the
budgets of these departments. In 2004, the Government
created a new Ministry for Moralization (i.e.
Anti-Corruption) to investigate government corruption and
promote anti-corruption as an important national value.


8. (22. C) In 2005, there were government-sponsored
anti-trafficking information and education campaigns. The
government-run television station has run several
anti-trafficking documentaries about West and Central Africa,
including a program on child herders, as well as discussions
about the exploitation of children by marabouts on
government-run radio. The government-owned daily newspaper
has covered stories of child trafficking, forced begging, and
exploitation of children as preachers by religious leaders in

2005. Government officials held several public awareness
raising meetings in southern Chad for local communities on
the dangers faced by child herders and domestics. The
Ministries of Justice and Social Action educated key
parliamentarians on the changes to the legal code pertaining
to child trafficking and prostitution in August and
September. Government officials and the High Islamic Council
held meetings with imams and marabouts on the issue of child
begging and forced child labor. Independent radio stations
and newspapers also publicize the issue of trafficking. The
Ministry of Labor held meetings with local communities in
Goundi, Toulala, Doboti, and Koumra, the key source area for
children trafficked into the capital for labor exploitation.


9. (22. D) The crux of the Government approach is
prevention. The Ministries of Social Affairs and Health work
closely with UNICEF on nationwide programs promoting
education for girls, birth registrations, and microfinance
programs. The Government is also following and IMF-backed
poverty alleviation program.


10. (22. F) The Government has a good working relationship
with NGOs and elements of civil society. For example, in
cases where children are recovered as the result of
trafficking or other abuse, police and border officials
notify the Ministry of Justice and Social Action and human
rights groups or religious institutions for victim
assistance. Government and non-governmental organization
personnel conduct joint missions to trafficking-prone areas
and recently traveled together to Kribi, Cameroon, for an
anti-trafficking workshop. P/E officer observed directly a
situation in Moundou in which the police chief called a local
human rights group to come to help with an abandoned child,
believed to be an escaped child herder. In northeastern
Chad, a trafficked child herder was discovered by Chadian
military on patrol. The military commander in the region
called in a national human rights group to assist with

repatriating the child to his area of origin.


11. (22. G) The Government's monitoring of immigration as
it relates to trafficking at the airport is improving. In
2005, immigration officials uncovered a potential case of
child trafficking after noticing irregularities with the
child's travel documentation. Chad is in the process of
requiring that the photographs of children be put in the
passports of their parents. Controlling Chad's expansive
land borders is not possible. Border officials at Ngueli
(with Kousseri, Cameroon) do search vehicles and have found
children being trafficked across the border into Cameroon.
While not systematic, there are attempts to monitor the
situation. The Ministries of Justice, Public Security, and
Social Action began training immigration, police, and customs
officials on trafficking, how to recognize and investigate
cases, and how to provide victim assistance in February 2005.
The officials have asked for monthly seminars on different
aspects of the issues, particularly victim protection.


12. (22. J) The Ministry of Social action and family has a
National Plan of Action to Combat the Sexual Exploitation of
Children and a plan to Combat the Worst Forms of Child Labor,
which include the investigation of the scope and magnitude of
the problem, provisions for public awareness-raising, legal
protections for victims, and protection efforts. The
Ministries of Justice, Public Security, Labor, Education, and
Social Action and Family all have anti-trafficking components
in their action plans that were derived from the Government's
own surveys in conjunction with UNICEF and other relevant
non-governmental organizations.
WALL