U.S. Department of State 2003 Trafficking in Persons Report - Angola

Angola (Tier 2)

Angola is a country of origin for persons trafficked primarily to Europe and South Africa for labor and sexual exploitation. Angola also has an internal trafficking problem, fueled by the large numbers of displaced persons, orphans, and former combatants and trafficking victims of the country's civil war, which ended in the April 2002 cease fire.

During the civil war, thousands of men, women, and children were abducted by the UNITA rebel movement for use as forced laborers and as sex slaves and combatants.

The Government of Angola does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so despite severe resource constraints. The government needs to step up efforts aimed at preventing the country's growing numbers of street children from becoming trafficking victims and enhance law enforcement efforts, especially prosecutions and arrests.

Prevention

Over the past year, the Ministry of Social Reinsertion, in its efforts to resettle displaced persons and rehabilitate victims, trained 1,070 child monitors who identified approximately 43,000 children who had been separated from their families. With several international organizations and NGOs, the government set in motion its national plan of action against commercial sexual exploitation of children. The government also works with various international organizations to raise school attendance and to publicize the plight of the estimated 24,000 children living in the streets.

Prosecution

There are no specific laws that prohibit trafficking in persons. Angola's 1992 constitution bans slavery, and would be the basic statute to prosecute trafficking cases. Laws against kidnapping, rape, assault, and prostitution also could be applied in a trafficking case. We have no information on prosecutions.

Protection

The government is resettling previously abducted Angolan citizens and reuniting displaced persons with their families. It has launched a campaign to register and identify about five million minors; as of November 2002, more than 1.5 million had been registered. The government does not treat trafficking victims as criminals. They are entitled to emergency residence status for humanitarian reasons and receive some services from a handful of government programs. The government operates orphanages throughout the country for abducted children.