Human Trafficking: The Modern Day Slave Trade
A brother, mother, sister, daughter all taken in the middle of the night to be sold the next day as a slave or to work as a soldier to capture even more women and children. This sounds like something out of a horror film, but this happens every day in Uganda.
In Uganda human trafficking, in other words modern day slavery still exists and is going strong. A rebel force called the LRA is stealing children and forcing them to work as soldiers or sex slaves for them. Also, sex trafficking, the selling of a girl’s body against her will, is common as well. While the problem of human trafficking is certainly not unique to Uganda, it is an area where we can effectively address the issue.
The USFG will work with Non Government Organizations (NGOs) in Uganda to expand their programs in order to have the presence of the U.S. in Uganda because it is vital to have a U.S. presence in Uganda in order to stop the LRA from continuing their abduction of children, provide aftercare to victims of human trafficking to help them heal mentally and physically and to provide them with the skills they need to be able to stand on their own two feet again and be productive member of society and provide prevention of human trafficking with a heavy focus on education
The United States federal government should substantially increase its public health assistance to Sub-Saharan Africa by providing financial aid to NGOs to help stop the human trafficking crisis, because it is currently being blocked by evil forces who want to continue to trade human lives, it will continue to get worse until we do something to stop it, and we can do a lot to solve human trafficking which will have great benefits not only to Africa but the world as a whole.
Very little attention is being given to the Ugandan crisis as Jan Egeland, the United Nations Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs stated in 2003,
“I cannot find any other part of the world that is having an emergency on the scale of Uganda that is getting so little international attention.”(Opening Our Eyes ugandacan.org)
The lack of geopolitical interest in Uganda has prevented much of anything from being done in Uganda. It is known as “the forgotten war”. Most westerners know next to nothing about it, and our governments do little to stop it. Frankly, the region holds no strategic geopolitical interest for us. We treat it as just another story of Africans killing Africans in endless guerilla warfare- a Darfur in slow motion. Perhaps if the rebels were stealing oil rather than children the world would pay more attention (Batstone 111).
Peace talks with the LRA that could possibly end the violence are finally underway, but the lack of U.S. interest in Uganda has put these talks at serious risk of failing. Who knows when we can get an opportunity to end the violence of the LRA like this again. Now is the time to act.
Negotiations currently taking place in Juba, Sudan to end the twenty year war between the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army and Government of Uganda offer the best chance ever to settle the conflict peacefully. Yet the United States Government, a strong partner of the Government of Uganda with far-reaching regional influence, has yet to definitively endorse the negotiations or to offer support to strengthen the prospects for the talks’ success. A lack of priority focus on the issue and initial skepticism regarding the viability of the negotiations has led to deadly complacency amongst government officials (USG and Juba Peace Process Brief Ugandacan.org).
After children get out of the LRA or other forms of human trafficking they are taken to an after care facility, but NGOs that run these facilities lack the necessary funding to combat the problems in Uganda. Aaron Young spoke about this problem,
“Once the children are taken to an IO or NGO program center, these organizations then attempt to find the families of the children, and reintegrate the former child soldiers into their communities. However, these localized centers face serious funding and human resource constraints.” (Preventing, Demobilizing irps.ucsd.edu).
Human Trafficking is still a large problem in Uganda. Uganda is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Until August 2006, the terrorist rebel organization, Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), abducted children and adults in northern Uganda to serve as soldiers, sex slaves, and porters. Ugandan children are trafficked internally, as well as to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, for commercial sexual exploitation. Karamojong women and children are sold in cattle markets or by intermediaries and forced into situations of domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, herding, and begging. Importers traffic Pakistani, Indian, and Chinese workers to Uganda and trafficking networks bring in Indian women for sexual exploitation. (U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report usinfo.state.gov)
The LRA, a rebel force in Uganda, has played a major role in human trafficking in Northern Uganda. They have violated children beyond imagination.
According to UNICEF, the LRA has abducted approximately 12,000 children since 2002 and continued to abduct children during the year [2006]. The LRA forced children into virtual slavery as laborers, soldiers, guards, and sex slaves. In addition to being beaten, raped, and forced to march until exhausted, abducted children were forced to participate in the killing of other children who attempted to escape. More than 85 percent of LRA captives were made up of children whom the LRA abducted and forced to fight as rebels; most LRA rebels were between the ages of 11 and 16. (State Department Reports on the Use of Child Soldiers www.cdi.org)
The type of pain endured by child soldiers abducted into the LRA is unimaginable. Take for example the story of Charles a child who was abducted into the LRA.
“Now strike these traitors over the head,” yelled the commander. When not a single boy moved, the rebel leader snatched the club out of Charles’s hand, swung it back, and waked one of the older boys square in the back. The boy let out a blood curdling scream and thudded to the ground. Cocking his club back for another swing, the commander glared at the next boy in line. He needed no further urging. The boy raised the club and brought it down hard on the man kneeling directly in front of him. Blood came pouring out of the man’s head as he crumpled sideways. The unthinkable breached, the other boys immediately joined in the slaughter. The commander put the borrowed club back into Charles’s hand and gave a satisfied smile as Charles put it to work.
In a matter of minutes, the three bodies lay lifeless at the boys’ feet. Charles felt numb, like he wanted to cry but could not pull out the tears.
“That’s it boys, but there is still one more thing left to do before you are worthy to be an LRA solider,” the commander announced. “To gain the strength of a warrior, you must lick your victim’s blood so that it will run through your bodies.”
After what the boys had just done, this request seemed simple. At least Charles thought so until he tasted the blood on his tongue. The whole episode turned suddenly real; he could no longer pretend that this was a bad dream. His stomach lurched as if to vomit.
“Well done boys. Welcome to the LRA,” the commander said after they had completed their gruesome task.
In case they might overlook the full meaning of their initiation ceremony, he added, “There is now no going back to your home village. You are murderers; the families of the men you killed will seek revenge. You would be foolish to attempt escape. Where would you go?” (Batstone 124-125)
Sex trafficking is a tragedy that occurs in Uganda that is just as tragic as Charles’s story. Let Jyoti’s story illustrate this tragedy. Jyoti was beaten for her refusal to participate in the sex trade. The brothel keepers assaulted her repeatedly, more than fifty times, she said, with sticks, plastic water pipes, and electric cords. She reported even being bitten on two occasions on the back of her arms.
Jyoti’s average workday started around noon and would go as late as 4:00 A.M., with no days off and no holidays. She was forced to have sex with an unbelievable average of twenty-five customers a day, often without the use of a condom. A conservative estimate? Jyoti could have been forced to have sex with more than fifteen thousand customers over the three years she endured this assault, each contact a potential death sentence if he was an HIV carrier. (Haugen 86)
The presence of the U.S. in Uganda is vital to ensuring that a stop is put to the LRA. Historic peace talks to end the 21-year war in northern Uganda, thought to have collapsed, may yet get a second chance. The new involvement of regional countries, the African Union and especially UN special envoy Joaquim Chissano gives new hope to a process already considered the best opportunity to end the war. Yet, reviving peace talks and ensuring their success are two different challenges. Reaching a comprehensive agreement will demand fresh thinking and flexibility by all stakeholders, especially when dealing with issues of transitional justice and trust. In particular, the U.S. government, thus far publicly absent from the process, can bring critical leverage and confidence to the process by public support and engagement (Seizing the Second Chance Ugandacan.org)
NGO after care facilities work very well in helping children recover. Only a few organizations – World Vision Gulu, GUSCO, the Gulu Vocational and Community Centre, and the Community Services Department of the Gulu District Administration – are active in providing aftercare for former combatants. Due to limited resources and immediate demands, recent reports indicate that efforts thus far, have focused on the reception and resettlement of returning abducted children. This involves children being placed in reception centers, where they have access to first-line counseling and treatment, as well as assistance to trace, assess and be reunited with families. To date, three rehabilitation centers have been set up and are run by NGOs in Uganda – two in Gulu Town and another in Masindi District, south of Gulu District. At these centers, children are involved in programs that include feeding, medical treatment, accommodation and trauma counseling. While those children involved in the struggle for freedom against Obote before 1986 were given a degree of support from the government, the presiding opinion is that children caught up in the armed rebellion in northern Uganda since 1987, have not received adequate support from the government.40 No government programs or resources for children abducted by the LRA have been identified. In the current research, none of the key respondents, both from within and external to the government was able to identify government support strategies.
Generally, the conditions in these care centers are regarded as inadequate, particularly when violence increases. As mentioned in the forgoing section, there is overcrowding, too few counselors and little training or education materials. Some attempts are made to teach basic carpentry, tailoring and bicycle repair at a few of these centers. However, most children have nothing to do and therefore sit around or play cards. Aside from this, these are safe houses where children who have shared experiences can begin to interact with one another, in preparation for reintegration into ‘normal’ society.
Possibly the most comprehensive approach to date has been undertaken by World Vision Uganda that, since March 1995, has been operating a Traumatized Children of War Counseling and Rehabilitation Centre for demobilized child soldiers and young adults. The centre aims to help children who have been abducted and recruited into the LRA in the Gulu and Kitgum districts of northern Uganda. To date, 2 500 children have passed through the centre. In addition to counseling and medical attention, these children also received vocational and life skills training – one of the more important components in trauma counseling (Stavrou and Stavrou and Stewart).
However, education is the key! DEPDC applies prevention as the pathway and education, protection and development; as the preventive tools. These components are viewed as the most effective approach in reducing the vulnerability of girls and boys from entering prostitution or other sex-labor situations. It is widely acknowledged that measures to prevent a child from entering prostitution rather than channeling resources entirely into rehabilitation is preferable both to the individual and to society as a whole. Prevention is more cost-efficient and has a considerably higher success rate for each child involved than efforts to rehabilitate a child who has already experienced life as a prostitute. Prevention is through education by using strategies of seminars, research, workshops, massive awareness campaigns at community and local government levels on the issues of human trafficking and the rights of the child. Education is the key.
DEPDC offers education opportunities for children who would otherwise receive none; a safe-shelter and full-time accommodation to at-risk women and children in order to prevent them from being trafficked into the sex industry or other exploitative child-labour situations and reaches out at community level to raise awareness of human trafficking. DEPDC strongly believes in the importance of providing an education as the key to opening a range of opportunities in life for young people, beginning of course with a positive primary school experience. Evidence shows that the longer a girl or boy stays in school, the greater the probability that they will stay out of the sex trade. Receiving an education is viewed as one of the best strategies to reduce the vulnerability of girls and boys.
While physically located in school children are unable to work. Furthermore, school attendance limits the hours of work and defines the character and the conditions of employment that children can undertake. As important is the fact that it allows them to build a social network. Educated girls and boys are much less likely to be duped by human traffickers. Statistics based on follow-up of the DEPDC daughters show that only 2 % of the children have later entered the sex industry. Most of the children are ethnic hill tribe minorities originally from Myanmar or China.
Once the students finish the program at DEPDC, various options are given to them for future plans. Options provided include staying at DEPDC to work combined with study either at non-formal education to complete high school, a degree in Community Development in Chiang Rai or Vocational Training. At DEPDC education does not only refer to formal education but also to the development of life skills for the development of the whole child. DEPDC also offers loans to students who wish to continue to study at higher levels. While studying they are able to work at DEPDC to pay off the loans (Strategy depdc.org).
Works Cited
Batstone, David. Not For Sale. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Quaranto, Peter. “Opening Our Eyes to the Forgotten War in Northern Uganda”. Uganda-CAN. June 20, 2005 <http://www.ugandacan.org/item/4>.
Quaranto, Peter. “USG and Juba Peace Process Brief “. Uganda-CAN. 26 April, 2007 <http://www.ugandacan.org/UgandaCAN_April_07_Brief.php>.
Young, Aaron. “Preventing, Demobilizing,Rehabilitating, and Reintegrating Child Soldiers in African Conflicts”. The Journal of International Policy Solutions. Spring 2007 <irps.ucsd.edu/assets/012/6360.pdf>.
“State Department Reports on the Use of Child Soldiers”. Center for Defense Information Organization. May 6, 2005 <www.cdi.org/pdfs/2004-state-hrr-child-soldiers.pdf >.
“Strategy”. Development and Education Programme for Daughters and Communities. November 1, 2007 <http://www.depdc.org/eng/aboutus/strategy.html>.
Haugen, Gary. Terrify No More. Nashville: W Pub. Group, 2005.
Green, Eric. “Public Awareness of Human Trafficking Increasing, Rice Says”. International Information Programs. 12 June 2007 <http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile- english&y=2007&m=June&x=200706121538261xeneerg0.3716089>.
Stavros Stavrou and Robert Stewart with Amanda Stavrou, “ACT AGAINST CHILD SOLDIERS IN AFRICA: A READER”. Institute for Security Studies. February 2000 <http://www.issafrica.org/static/templates/tmpl_html.php?node_id=178&link_id=20>.
