Human trafficking in Guinea-Bissau
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Guinea-Bissau ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in September 2007.[1]
In 2010 Guinea-Bissau was a source country for children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically forced labor, principally begging, and forced prostitution. Boys were sent to Senegal, and to a lesser extent Mali and Guinea, under the care of Koranic teachers called marabouts, or their intermediaries, to receive Islamic religious education. These teachers, however, routinely beat and subjected the children, called talibé, to force them to beg, and subjected them to other harsh treatment, sometimes separating them permanently from their families. UNICEF estimated that 200 children were taken from Guinea-Bissau each month for this purpose, and in 2008 a study found that 30 percent of the 8,000 religious students begging on the streets of Dakar were from Guinea-Bissau. Oftentimes, former talibés men from the regions of Bafata and Gabu, were the principal traffickers. In most cases, they operated in the open, protected by their stature in the Muslim community. Some observers believed girls were also targets and may have been subjected to domestic labor in Guinea-Bissau or Senegal.[2]
The Government of Guinea-Bissau did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it made significant efforts to do so, despite limited resources. Despite these efforts, the government demonstrated weak overall progress in combating trafficking during the reporting period, particularly its lack of any effective law enforcement action; therefore, Guinea-Bissau was placed on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive year.[2]
International Response
The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 3" in 2017[3] and 2023.[4]
In 2023, the Organised Crime Index noted the prevalence of the crime as well as new legislation.[5]
Prosecution (2010)
The Government of Guinea-Bissau did not increase efforts to prosecute and punish trafficking offenders during the reporting period. Bissau-Guinean law does not prohibit all forms of human trafficking, though it prohibits forced labor under article 37 of the country's penal code, which prescribes a sufficiently stringent penalty of life imprisonment. In the previous reporting period, the National Assembly drafted legislation prohibiting child trafficking, though it was not adopted before the legislature was dissolved in August 2008. Guinea-Bissau does not specifically prohibit forced prostitution. The government could use existing laws to punish trafficking cases, such as the laws against removing children, sexual exploitation, abuse, and kidnapping of children, but did not do so during the reporting period. The government neither investigated nor prosecuted human trafficking offenses during the reporting period, due largely to systemic failures that pervaded the judicial system, such as lack of institutional capacity and corruption.[2]
