HR, Displacement

Local trafficking and forced labour mostly affect women and girls in Somalia in the domestic work sector. The victims are mainly women and young children, and most are trafficked for domestic work, forced prostitution and, as recent reports indicate, even organ removal. Conflict and insecurity breed desperation, and traffickers present themselves as a ticket out of all of that. Dismantling the operations of trafficking networks has been mostly unsuccessful in Somalia, with the majority of interventions focused on rescue, negotiations of release and reactionary approaches, as opposed to prevention. Yet organized networks are accessible. Their contact persons are traceable, and a testament to how a 17-year-old boy or a 16-year-old girl knows exactly who to reach and can find a way to get out of Somalia through a perilous journey facilitated by a trafficker who takes them via the sea and to Libya with the promise of reaching Europe or elsewhere one day.

The information is there but the intent, resources and the strategy for ending human trafficking in conflict have not been at an adequate level. Communities are not informed well enough to know that traffickers masquerading as employment prospects are leading them down a fatal path. More often than not, those who were forced into sexual slavery are left with false promises of employment abroad and then further exploited for debt bondage and other forced labour. Very recently, that has also extended to include military service.