Rwanda: Human Trafficking And Modern-day Slavery

The following are exerpts from the U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report
June, 2008

Photo:
Coffee Work Force or Slavery Practices

Republic of Rwanda

The Republic of Rwanda is located in E central Africa [map] and is bordered by Congo (Kinshasa) (W), by Uganda (N), by Tanzania (E), and by Burundi (S). Kigali is its capital and largest town. Rwanda is the most densely populated country in Africa. It is landlocked, has few natural resources, and minimal industry. The 1994 genocide decimated Rwanda's fragile economic base, severely impoverishing the population, eroding the country's human resource base, and destroying much of the countries infrastructure. Rwanda is recovering and has made social and economic progress. Administrative, judicial and economic infrastructures have been rehabilitated and the economy has stabilized and is growing due to sound macroeconomic policies and substantial support from donors.

Rwanda is a source country for women and children trafficked for the purposes of forced labor and sexual exploitation. Rwandan girls are trafficked within the country for domestic servitude, as well as for commercial sexual exploitation by loosely organized prostitution networks. Small numbers of children from Rwanda’s Eastern Province may be trafficked to Uganda for work on tea plantations or use in commercial sexual exploitation. During the reporting period, recruiters for a renegade Congolese general, fraudulently promising civilian employment, conscripted an unknown number of Congolese boys and men from Rwanda-based refugee camps, as well as Rwandan children from towns in Rwanda, for forced labor and soldiering in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (D.R.C.).

Read [full country report]

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Child Prostitution in [Rwanda]