A new study on human trafficking in East Africa

Title: Human Trafficking of women and children for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation in East Africa: Case study of Tanzania and Kenyan Actors.
Funding Institution: CMC, the Netherlands
Lead Researcher: Richard Ochanda
Research Institution: Koinonia Advisory Research and Development Service- KARDS
Date: Research on progress

The study on human trafficking of women and children for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation in Kenya and Tanzania was commissioned by CMC, a mission support organization from the Netherlands. Koinonia Advisory Research and Development Service (KARDS) conducted this study. The objectives of the study were to:

• Make an inventory of the faith based networks, NGOs and other civil associations that are active in providing assistance to trafficked women and children who have been victims and/or survivors of commercial sexual exploitation
• Find out the needs of these organizations in terms of financial assistance and capacity building
• Assist actors share experiences, skills and information with each other in order to promote general collaboration and networking
• Stimulate creativity amongst the present actors and generate interest amongst other non involved actors
  

In Kenya the study was conducted in Malindi, Mombasa and Nairobi while in Tanzania the study was conducted in Dares Salaam and Zanzibar. A total of 51 organizations participated in this study. Organizations not able to respond to our questionnaires provided us with brochures, newsletters and other material about their organizations, they also explained to us about the nature of their work. Organizations not reached personally by our team corresponded with us using Email and other means.

In conducting this study we utilized both desk review and field work. During the desk review we reviewed media reports on human trafficking for the last seven years mainly from Kenya and Tanzania. A few media reports from other countries such as Uganda and Malawi relevant to our study were also studied. We benefited much from literature on human trafficking and migration studies especially covering Sub Saharan Africa and more so East Africa. There are a some important country studies on the Kenyan situation. We did not find country studies on the Tanzanian situation on human trafficking apart from the ones on the US government trafficking site. In the field the researchers divided themselves into three teams the first covering Nairobi, the second covering Malindi and Mombasa and the third covering Dares Salaam and Zanzibar. Our field work was mainly geared towards understanding the DNA make up of organizations working to combat human trafficking of women and children for purposes of commercial sexual exploitation. We mainly used the snowballing study design where we were directed to the actors by either NGOs most popular in this field, faith based organizations or the governmental authorities. We also managed to meet a few survivors of human trafficking who were treated with ethical concerns in accordance to IOM 2008 report on East Africa. The results of our fieldwork form the bulk of our chapter on institutional landscape.

We experienced a few limitations in the field. In Tanzania most humanitarian organizations had difficulty sharing their experiences. We hope as more studies are carried out in this field in Tanzania, organizations will feel much more freer to share their experiences with one another. In this case we recommend that network formations be supported, this will help organizations to interact and share more closely. Due to the time and financial constraints we could not conduct very comprehensive organizational studies. On the other hand our statistics on survivors and beneficiaries in the two countries could not be relied for purposes of reporting because we felt that they entangled untrafficked clients being assisted by the actors. However despite these statistical anomalies we were still able to derive our inferences.

We found that organizations working against human trafficking of women and children in Kenya and Tanzania are likely to be involved with children, gender and/or HIV/AIDS issues. Other involved actors are likely to be working for youth empowerment, promotion of human rights, poverty eradication and rehabilitation of drug addicts. Organizations work to address a particular aspect of the complex chain of human trafficking chain in the light of prevention, rehabilitation and social support, legal and judicial support, reintegration of survivors and lobby and advocacy. Resources to assist the survivors of human trafficking are mainly mobilized from international organizations, local contributions within the organizations, from religious institutions, governments amongst other sources. Four important needs were identified by the actors which are financial support, capacity building, government support and a conducive legal environment. Most organizations assisting survivors of human trafficking are in the receiving areas. We made an assumption that there is a possibility that there are very few or no interventions at all in the source areas.

An important contribution of this study especially within the East African context is: first, the clear DNA generic make up of the actors against human trafficking of children and women in Tanzania and Kenya. Second, we found that our East African culture has elements that encourage human trafficking calling interventions on behavioral and/or cultural change. Third, a comprehensive directory of actors showing areas of operations for each actor in Kenya and Tanzania has been developed to accompany this study. It is our hope that this will make it much easy for actors to communicate with one another and share knowledge hence promoting new inventions and effectiveness in assisting the survivors and victims of human trafficking. Fourth, major actors have been identified in the two countries including those involved in research and documentation; this will certainly be a great help for those seeking information in this area such as new actors, the governments, funding institutions and the research community.

To view the KARDS website (Click Here)

Those interested in getting information about this study are kindly requested to get in touch.