Chad: 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report Part 1

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 NDJAMENA 000088

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

LONDON AND PARIS FOR AFRICA WATCHERS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ASEC ELAB PGOV PHUM PREF SMIG KCRM KFRD KWMN CD
SUBJECT: Chad: 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report Part 1

REF: A) 06 State 202745, B) Ndjamena 0002


1. Summary: The Government of Chad cooperates with United Nations
(UN) agencies, local communities and church-based and other
domestic and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
in combating trafficking, primarily in the area of prevention. Due
to intense rebel activity throughout 2006, heavy government
spending on the military reduced the already limited resources and
political will directed towards anti-trafficking and other social
programs. Trafficking in Chad is primarily the internal trafficking
of children as domestic workers, cattle herders and beggars. Chad
does not have a significant number of trafficking victims entering,
transiting or departing the country. There are no reports of
adults being trafficked for labor or sexual exploitation. The
Chadian Council of Ministers and Presidency have yet to approve a
draft decree amending the penal code to include specific sanctions
for child labor abuses. Chad signed the Multilateral Accord on
Regional Cooperation (MARC) to Combat Trafficking in July 2006,
but has yet to sign the UN Convention on Transnational Organized
Crime, which includes more comprehensive anti-trafficking
commitments. As a signatory of MARC, Chad is required to prepare a
study on the trafficking situation in Chad, establish a national
MARC follow-up committee, adopt a national anti-trafficking plan
and pursue ratification of the UN Convention on Transnational
Organized Crime. End summary.


2. Embassy's trafficking in persons points-of-contact are P/E
officer Rebecca Daley and Political Assistant Joel Mbaibarem.
Ms. Daley and Mr. Mbaibarem can be reached at (235) 51-70-09 or
via e-mail at daleyrh@state.gov and mbaibaremjx@state.gov. Two
post officers spent 120 hours preparing this report.

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OVERVIEW OF CHAD'S ANTI-TRAFFICKING PERFORMANCE
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3. Chad is a minor source, destination, and transit country for
trafficking in children. Chad's trafficking problem is primarily
the internal trafficking of children as herders, domestic servants,
beggars, and prostitutes. Reports in 2005 from the Governor of
Doba Department and the NGO, Action for Development Cooperation
(ACODE),of Cameroonian and Central African Republic minors
trafficked to Chad's oil producing region for prostitution remain
uncorroborated. Child herders follow traditional routes for the
grazing of cattle and often cross international borders into
Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Nigeria. Children are
generally put into trafficking situations by their own families,
who knowingly or unknowingly "lease" or give their children's
services to relatives or intermediaries to work as domestics or
herders and marabouts for Islamic education. Most children are
trafficked within Chad Surveys of Chadian child herders in 1999 and
2001 conducted by UNICEF stated that it was not possible to
quantify their number.


4. There have been no changes in the direction of trafficking and
there are few reports of adults being trafficked for labor or
sexual exploitation. In 2006, between 40 and 50 Bangladeshis found
themselves victimized by an employment scam that left them stranded
in Chad without jobs. A Chadian agent operating in Dacca charged
the would-be workers approximately $1,000 per individual to locate
a jobs for them in Chad and for processing related visas and work
permits. Upon arrival in Chad, the Bangladeshis discovered that the
jobs for which they had been recruited, did not exist. By the end
of the year, only two of the forty Bangladeshis had been
repatriated, while those remaining were unemployed and in the care
of local Islamic charities.


5. The Government acknowledges that 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 with whom representatives of the
United Nations agencies and other organizations work. The Chadian
governments attention to combating rebel groups in the East was
its highest priority in 2006. While government ministries
concerned with trafficking continued to cooperate with UN, NGOs and
local communities, it has yet to move from a supportive to a
leadership role in the fight against trafficking and other social
problems.


6. Chadian rebels, backed by the Government of Sudan, staged
attacks throughout 2006 including an assault repelled from the
outskirts of the capital in April 2006. Much of the Government's
available resources were redirected to combating the rebels. This
has reduced the very limited existing capacity and political will
of the government to address social problems. However, the

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government has offered to make some in-kind contributions such as
land, buildings for rehabilitation shelters and social services.
The Government has difficulty paying civil servant salaries
regularly.


7. To date, the government has yet to engage in the formal
collection of trafficking information or the compilation of related
data. According to the government, lack of paved roads,
electricity, computers, and telephone coverage in most parts of the
country make it difficult for the Government to coordinate
anti-trafficking efforts and collect information. Case
documentation is kept in paper files and the ability to replicate
and distribute it is constrained by the unreliable availability of
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 inaccessible by road from the capital.


8. Corruption at the highest levels of government remains a
significant problem. There is no evidence, however, suggesting
widespread trafficking-related corruption. The Ministry for
Moralization (i.e. Anti-Corruption) is responsible for
investigating government corruption and for promoting
anti-corruption as an important national value.



9. The Chadian Government denies recruitment of under-age soldiers
into the Chadian Army, but acknowledges that some under-age
volunteers may have provided false documentation to gain entry into
the army. To address the broader issue of child soldiers in both
rebel and Chadian army ranks, the government has endorsed
preparation of a comprehensive survey of child soldiers to be
conducted in 2007 in cooperation with UNICEF.


10. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR)
reported that some children were among those recruited by Sudanese
rebels from its refugee camps in Chad in early 2006. UNHCR
estimates that over 2,000 males from the camps joined Sudanese
rebel groups, and among them was a small number of children as
young as thirteen years of age. UNHCR launched a media campaign
stressing that UNHCR camps be respected as centers of refuge for
non-combatants. Occasional reports were also received from press
and other sources claiming to have observed under-age males in the
Chadian army. While press reports indicated that the child soldier
phenomenon was not common and did not accuse the army of recruiting
child soldiers, photographs were published of what appeared to be
under-age Chadian army soldiers.


11. According to the editor of the Notre Temps weekly newspaper, a
poor 2006-growing season in parts of southern Chad increased
pressure on families and villages to lease children to cattlemen as
child herders. The editor alleged that a combination of economic
pressures, social acceptance of the practice in many areas of the
country, and the complicity of many local and central government
authorities has frustrated efforts to reduce this form of
trafficking. He added, however, that the public awareness raising
efforts of the ministries (education and social action),the
Catholic Church and NGOs has put a spotlight on the issue and, in
particular, reduced the involvement of local government officials.

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Prevention
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12. The following paragraphs are keyed to questions raised in
paragraph 28 A through G of ref A.


13. The Government acknowledges that trafficking of children is a
problem and is taking steps to raise public awareness in
cooperation with UN and other organizations through programs
administered at the directorate level in the Ministries of
Educatin, Justice, Labor, Public Security, and Social Action and
Family. The Ministry of Social Action and Family, which includes
a Special Protection Unit, coordinates various governmental
anti-trafficking activities. The Director for Children's Issues at
the Ministry of Social Action is responsible for overall monitoring
of the issues.


14. The Government lacks capacity and resources and therefore
depends to a significant degree on UNICEF, religious institutions,
and non-governmental organizations to raise public awareness and
assist victims. To date, the crux of the Governments approach has

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been prevention.


15. While the government continued to cooperate with UN, community
and non-governmental organizations in 2006 to counter trafficking
through awareness raising and education, UNICEF reported that these
activities had their greatest success at the local levels through
community-based organizations. In the absence of strong
enforcement mechanisms, at this stage, raising the awareness of the
public and changing public attitudes is at the forefront of efforts
to reduce trafficking activities in Chad. For example, one
approach taken to reduce the practice of parents leasing their
children to cattlemen to serve as herders is to convince families
and village elders that children who remain in the village and are
educated will ultimately contribute more to the community than the
one cow every six months typically paid for the services of a child
herder.


16. The focus of public awareness raising and other efforts to
counter the exploitation of children as herders and domestic
workers was concentrated in the South where, according to UNICEF,
ninety percent of the children affected originate. The Government,
UNICEF and its partners staged two large public-awareness raising
rallies during 2006 in the cantons of Metekaga and Nderguigui at
which some 6,000 people were present. In a concerted program, the
Catholic Action Movement staged special masses, the film, For a
Cow, was presented followed by discussion sessions with primary
and secondary school students, 70 children received training in
child rights and 60 local officials and chiefs of itinerant cattle
communities and from local villages were instructed on the
provisions of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the
Child.


17. The Government cooperated with UNICEF, Oxfam, the Catholic
Relief Services, World Vision and the National Justice and Peace
Commission on programs to celebrate the African Childs Day and the
Week of the African Child.


18. The NGO, National Justice and Peace Commission (CDPJ),held a
conference in February 2006 on child domestics and herders at
Koumra in the South. The 98 participants who attended the
conference included village chiefs, representatives of the Islamic
and Christian (Catholic and Protestant) religious communities,
s,
parents, cattle herders and children who worked as herders and
domestics. The conference set as objectives the development of
action plans to eradicate the exploitation of child herders and
domestics, the preparation and dissemination of child rights
information and an advocacy campaign to garner parliamentary
support.


19. In March 2006, a workshop to establish a system to rescue and
reintegrate child herders back to their communities was held in
the Moyen Chari-region town of Sarh. Two programs to identify,
rescue and reintegrate affected children have since been initiated
in Moyen Chari and Mandoul through the establishment of community
committees in 17 cantons. These committees are charged with
raising public awareness of parental responsibilities and child
rights, identifying child victims, denouncing persons suspected
of mistreating and/or sexually abusing children and, in the case of
child herders, following up on their reintegration into their
communities.


20. A memorandum of cooperation was signed between UNICEF and the
Association for Child Rescue and Rehabilitation (ACEE) providing
for the identification, rescue and reintegration of child herders.
According to UNICEF, the ACEE and other parties identified,
rescued and returned to their communities 360 child herders in

2006. This figure compares with a total of 264 child herders
reported as having been rescued and returned to their communities
in 2004 and 2005 contained in the Governments 2006 report on
implementation of the UN Child Rights Convention.


21. Government-run television showed anti-trafficking
documentaries. These included a series on anti-trafficking programs
in Burkina Fasso and the Republic of Benin concerning the rights of
children and the roles of border police, customs officials and the
gendarmerie in identifying and rescuing child victims of
trafficking. Government-radio broadcast anti-trafficking spots
focused on parents responsibilities to protect their children from
m
traffickers throughout the year and continued programming on child
herders. In response to negative reporting on abuses to children
in koranic schools at the end of 2005, the High Islamic Commission
sponsored radio broadcasts on the exploitation of children by
marabouts (koranic teachers),specifically warning against their

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mistreatment and use as beggars.


22. Government-owned daily newspaper reporting focused increasingly
on the governments military and political responses to the
rebellion and largely ceased to cover stories of child trafficking,
forced begging and other exploitation of children in 2006.


23. Independent radio stations and newspapers also publicized the
issue of trafficking. During 2006, a private station ran twice
weekly, 45-minute programs on human rights issues that included
trafficking and the legal rights of victims in an interactive
(call-in) format. This provided the opportunity for listeners to
pose questions and seek legal advice. A prosecutor was the guest
on one of the programs. In several cases this led to the
intervention of government authorities, including the recovery by
the police of a 16-year-old who called in to report that she was
being held (chained) against her will by a man.


24. 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 an IMF-backed poverty alleviation program.


25. The Government and UNICEF have carried out several studies of
child labor and child trafficking. A survey of child domestic
workers completed in June 2005 was the impetus for a multi-city
public awareness campaign. A workshop for various government
ministries was also conducted on the implications of the study.
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.
WALL