U.S. Department of State 2007 Trafficking in Persons Report - Tanzania

Tanzania (Tier 2)

Tanzania is a source, transit, and destination country for women and girls trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation and, to a lesser extent, boys trafficked for the purpose of forced labor. Girls from rural areas are trafficked to urban centers for domestic servitude and commercial sexual exploitation; some domestics fleeing abusive employers fall prey to exploitation in prostitution. There are unconfirmed reports that Tanzanian girls are lured to resort towns by promises of hotel jobs or riches and trips abroad, but instead are given work in bars or are sexually exploited. Small numbers of people are trafficked to South Africa, Oman, the United Kingdom, and possibly other European or Middle Eastern countries for domestic servitude. Boys are trafficked within the country for forced labor on farms, in mines, and in the informal sector. Citizens of neighboring countries may be trafficked through Tanzania for forced domestic labor and sexual exploitation in South Africa, Europe, and the Middle East.

The Government of Tanzania does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. To further its anti-trafficking efforts, the government should pass and enact comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation; develop national procedures for victim protection, including the screening of undocumented aliens for victimization before deportation; and regularly compile national statistics on the number of victims assisted and trafficking cases investigated and prosecuted.

Prosecution

The government's anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts during the reporting period focused on developing comprehensive anti-trafficking legislation applicable to both the mainland and Zanzibar. In May 2006, a working group comprised of officials from several ministries drafted legislation that was presented to the Cabinet Secretariat in July and, after revision, was approved in August. The Permanent Secretaries approved the draft in November and transmitted it to Zanzibar in February 2007 for review.

Tanzania does not prohibit all forms of trafficking in persons, and Zanzibar has a separate legal code from the mainland of Tanzania. On the mainland, traffickers can be prosecuted under existing statutes criminalizing the sale of people, forced labor, child labor, and various sexual offenses. There were investigations, but no prosecutions or convictions of traffickers on the mainland in 2006. In mid-2006, the Ministry of Public Safety and Security established an anti-trafficking section in the Criminal Investigation Department, and in March 2007, moved the section into the Transnational Organized Crime Unit, responsible for addressing terrorism, narcotics, and money laundering. The Ministry requested a separate line item for anti-trafficking in the national 2007 budget and officers trained in anti-trafficking staffed a telephone hotline for reporting criminal activity. Involvement in, or tolerance of, trafficking by individual government officials is suspected but not proven.

On Zanzibar, traffickers can be prosecuted under existing law that criminalizes kidnapping, abduction, and slavery. In 2006, the Criminal Investigations Division of the Zanzibar police investigated at least five suspected cases, determined that one involved trafficking two women from the mainland, and negotiated the return of the two victims to Dar es Salaam. Immigration officials on Zanzibar monitored passport applications for cases of trafficking; one officer turned away three female applicants with fraudulent documents, but did not investigate the man accompanying them. During the reporting period, the government trained 170 of the 248 immigration officers and virtually all of Zanzibar's local administrators on how to recognize, investigate, and prosecute instances of trafficking.

Protection

The government's efforts to protect victims of trafficking continued to suffer from a lack of resources; government officials regularly relied on NGOs to provide shelter, counseling, and rehabilitation for victims of trafficking. Victim assistance is unavailable in some areas of the country. During the year, law enforcement personnel and government officials identified and referred at least 28 trafficking victims to NGOs for care, though authorities did not demonstrate use of formal victim identification and referral procedures. During the reporting period, a labor union assisted approximately 1,020 trafficking victims, some of whom were referred to the organization by local government officials, child labor committees, and police. The government encourages victims' assistance in the investigation and prosecution of their traffickers, but the lack of national procedures for victim protection likely led to the deportation of most foreign victims before they were identified or able to give evidence in court. Foreign victims are not offered legal alternatives to their removal to countries in which they would face hardship or retribution.

Prevention

Political will to address human trafficking in Tanzania increased significantly during the reporting period, resulting in concrete prevention efforts. The inter-ministerial human trafficking committee, which includes ministries of the Zanzibar government, coordinated communication between various ministries, NGOs and civil society. President Kikwete's personal commitment to combat trafficking accelerated the drafting of anti-trafficking legislation and law enforcement training. In support of IOM's awareness-raising campaign, government officials appeared on television and radio programs and immigration officers distributed brochures at 25 border posts. During the year, the government's Research Coordinator for Human Trafficking proactively moved anti-trafficking legislation through the inter-ministerial clearance process and appeared on television and radio programs. Information provided by a caller to a radio program led to an ongoing trafficking investigation. The Ministry of Education's 288 Community Learning Centers in 10 districts enabled 8,335 children, approximately 70 percent of whom were removed from child labor, to enroll in school.