Human trafficking in Sierra Leone
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In 2008, Sierra Leone was a source, transit, and destination country for children and women trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and commercial sexual exploitation. Trafficking within the country is more prevalent than transnational trafficking and the majority of victims were children. Within the country, women and children were trafficked from rural provinces to towns and mining areas for domestic servitude, sexual exploitation, and forced labor in diamond mines, petty trading, petty crime, and for forced begging. Women and children may also have been trafficked for forced labor in agriculture and the fishing industry. Transnationally, Sierra Leonean women and children were trafficked to other West African countries, notably Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Liberia, Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, and The Gambia for the same purposes listed above and to North Africa, the Middle East, and Western Europe for domestic servitude and sexual exploitation. Sierra Leone was a destination country for children trafficked from Nigeria and possibly from Liberia and Guinea for forced begging, forced labor in mines and as porters, and for sexual exploitation. There were also cases of children trafficked from refugee communities in Sierra Leone.
In 2008 the Government of Sierra Leone did not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it made significant efforts to do so, despite limited resources. The government reported that it prosecuted five traffickers, but was unable to provide data on trafficking convictions. While Sierra Leone reported that it referred victims to an international organization's shelter, the number of victims referred was low.[1]
The country ratified the 2000 UN TIP Protocol in August 2014.[2]
The U.S. State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons placed the country in "Tier 2" in 2017[3] and 2023 [4]
The Government of Sierra Leone made modest law enforcement efforts to combat trafficking in the last year. Legislatively, Sierra Leone prohibits all forms of trafficking through its 2005 Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act, which prescribes a maximum penalty of 10 years imprisonment. This penalty is stringent, but not commensurate with penalties for rape, which carry a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. Between January and December 2007, the government reported that it conducted 14 trafficking investigations. Five of these cases are being prosecuted—as compared with seven cases prosecuted in 2006. Although an international NGO reported that Sierra Leone convicted three traffickers, the government was unable to corroborate this information. In January 2008, the Sierra Leonean Embassy in Conakry received from the Guinean government four Sierra Leonean women whom Guinean authorities suspected of trafficking children to Sierra Leone, and transported them back to Sierra Leone. Rather than prosecuting them, the government and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) determined that the women were actually trafficking victims and returned them to their communities.[1]
